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Sfr-> 


JACK SOUTH 

AND 

SOME OTHER JACKS 


BY 

REV. DAVID BEARNE, S.J. 

AUTHOR OF “ THE GOLDEN STAIR,” “ RIDINGDALE STORIES,” ETC. 



ST. LOUIS, MO., AND FREIBURG (BADEN) 
Published by B. Herder 
1909 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

FEB l3 1909 

Copyrijfht Entry 
CLASS OC XXc. No. 

-:_SO 7 H 3 

COPY B. 


Copyrighted, 1909 
By Joseph Gummersbach 



BECKTOLD— 

PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Clubs and Diamonds i 

II. Spades and Hearts i6 

III. A Wood and Water Party 28 

IV. A Golden Afternoon 46 

V. The Frigid Zone 53 

VI. Dr. South 64 

VII. Johnny Gidlow . ' 76 

VIII. An Assault 83 

IX. A Stirring Day 96 

X. A Feast of Reconciliation 113 

XI. The Dimming of the Diamond 130 

XII. Anxiety 136 

XIII. For Mother’s Sake . . . . ^ 141 

XIV. Flow and Ebb 147 

XV. Minstrel Boys ' . .150 

XVI. An Unexpected Interlude 157 

XVII. Another Newspaper Report 162 

XVIII. A Father’s Sentence 169 

XIX. Servitude 176 

XX. Corn Harvest 186 

XXI. A Visitor 193 

XXH. Several Discoveries 205 

XXHI. The Drive Home 219 

XXIV. Day Dreams . . . .' 223 

XXV. In Mother’s Arms 228 

XXVI. Instruction 233 

XXVH. Christmas 235 

XXVHI. A Harmonious Trio 239 

XXIX. A Fulfilled Prophecy 243 

XXX. Nemesis 247 

XXXI. Jack’s Scruples 251 

XXXH. The Quality of Mercy 256 

XXXHI. Ten Years Later 262 




JACK SOUTH 

CHAPTER I 

CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 

Earth’s rose is a bud that’s checked or grows 
As beams may encourage or blasts oppose.” 

— Browning. 

We’re all Jacks ! ” 

Four lads in their early teens stood among the 
laurels of Lord Graycote’s shrubbery. 

But not knaves/’ laughed the Hon. John Gray- 

cote. 

Won’t answer for myself or you,” said the first 
speaker, John South, only son of Dr. South, who was 
at this moment on a professional visit to Lady Gray- 
cote. 

Jack Davison, son of Lord Graycote’s head gar- 
dener, laughed aloud. The fourth Jack, one of Gid- 
low’s sons — Gidlow being a laborer on the Gray- 
cote estate — smiled silently. 

‘‘ Let’s take the names of cards,” said young South. 
He spoke rapidly but decisively, and by no means as 
one who is merely making a suggestion. ‘‘ John, 
you shall be Diamonds.” But John Graycote shook 
his head. 

''You shall be diamonds. Jack. Diamonds are 
bright — and so are you.” 


I 


2 


JACK SOUTH 

Also they’re hard, and so am L Very well ! But 
what will you be? The John of Hearts, eh? ” 

Graycote was always John. Young South, who 
was his closest chum, insisted upon being called Jack. 
It saved confusion, he used to plead. 

“If you like,” said Lord Graycote’s heir. He 
knew that Jack would have his own way in the end, 
whatever might propose. 

The other Jacks looked on in silence. 

“ I have it,” said the doctor’s son. “You shall b^ 
Jack (i.e., John) of Clubs; I forget how many Lord 
Graycote belongs to. The ‘ Carlton,’ of course, the 
' Rag and Bottle ’ possibly, and the ‘ Athenaeum ’ — 
eh?” 

Graycote was delighted. The other Jacks were 
puzzled. 

“Davison! you’re Jack of Spades!” exclaimed 
South to the gardener’s son. “ Most appropriate,” 
he went on, “ and Gidlow, my lad — well, you must 
be Jack of Hearts.” 

But the Jack of Spades was not pleased, and the 
Jack of Hearts did not quite understand what was 
happening. 

John Graycote had been arranging the details of g, 
small water-party and had pressed into his service 
young Davison and the lad Gidlow. The boat was 
to be ready at nine o’clock on the following morning, 
and the gardener’s son, with the son of the gardener’s 
laborer, were to be in attendance at that hour. The 


CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 


3 

four Jacks were looking forward to the event with 
“ the heart’s sure promise of festivity.” 

It was an August in which the river seemed made 
for living upon. Graycote, or Clubs, as we may call 
him now, had sounded his father on the subject of a 
house-boat. He had horrified his mother by declaring 
he would camp out if the weather lasted. It was an 
idle remark, and he knew it. The Graycote plate and 
diamonds were looked after with enormous care, but 
compared with the way in which the heir of Graycotes 
was guarded, the dishes and necklaces were altogether 
neglected. 

John and Jack (or Clubs and Diamonds) had hoped 
to enjoy their water picnic without being bothered 
with servants. It was for this reason that Clubs had 
asked permission to take Davison and Gidlow. When 
Jack South had assured Lord Graycote that they both 
swam rather better than the fishes,” his Lordship 
consented, only bargaining that the boatman (a very 
bulky person named Beige) should be in charge of the 
boat. When they remembered that the old tub was a 
four-oar, and that Beige would row, taking a couple 
of oars as his natural share of the labor, they were 
good enough to tolerate Beige. 

This is to be an experimental party. Jack,” said 
Clubs, as he and South left the Shrubbery. “ Early 
next week, if your sisters will only honour us, we 
are all going afloat in the barge.” 

‘^Strawberry!” exclaimed the Jack of Diamonds 


4 


JACK SOUTH 


with enthusiasm, ‘‘ the very thing the girls are long- 
ing for. Only don’t forget my mater’s dry-land pic- 
nic on Thursday week.” 

‘‘ Just as if a fellow living in Graycote could forget 
anything of that sort. When you go back to school 
I shall have only the parish bun-fight to look for- 
ward to.” 

“ For pity’s sake don’t talk about going back. I’ve 
only just come. But that’s you all over, John. By 
the way, have you made up that list of necessaries for 
to-morrow ? ” asked the doctor’s son excitedly. 

You pretend to be a model of method, but really if 
I didn’t look after you — ” 

Pax ! ” exclaimed Graycote, unfolding a long slip 
of paper. 

Jack took the paper, and broke into a merry laugh. 
“ The idea of beginning a list in that way ! Item. 
Pickles! ” 

Diamonds leaned against a silver beech in order to 
laugh comfortably. John stood watching and rejoic- 
ing in his mirth. 

I haven’t forgotten the rage you were in last sum- 
mer at Litford Leigh, when the ‘ Indian mixed ’ were 
not forthcoming,” remarked John of the Clubs. 
‘‘ You bullied me like an alderman.” 

John, I was a glutton then. I am a year older, 
and (I hope) wiser. You shall see to-morrow how 
prudent I can be.” 


CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 5 

“Why not to-day? You’re going to lunch with 
us, you know.” 

“No, John, I’ve promised to go back with the 
dad. It’s only my second day, you see, and the 
girls — 

“ Bother the girls ! ” had risen to the lips of young 
Graycote, but he checked himself with — “ What a 
nuisance ! ” 

“ O, are they?” asked Jack maliciously, thereby 
covering his friend with confusion. “ Much you 
know about it — a fellow that hasn’t a sister to bless 
himself with.” 

“ Don’t Jack. You know I didn’t mean that. Only 
I had been counting upon you for luncheon.” 

“ Horrible old cannibal ! ” shrieked Jack, making a 
playful rush at his chum, and almost overturning the 
slight, lanky form of the latter. “ Let us compro- 
mise. Look us up in the late afternoon and we will 
give you tea — and pickles. Also some music you’ve 
never heard before. Knew that would bring him,” 
said Jack, with triumph, as he watched John’s pale face 
flush with pleasure and the look of disappointment 
vanish. 

“ I shall come at five o’clock and be very thankful. 
But do run through that list before you go. You’re 
such an exacting person at these times, I don’t 
know — ” 

“ Pickles — rugs — lunch — fishing tackle — now 


6 


JACK SOUTH 

that's just what I object to in you,” — Jack broke off 
in his reading and tried to glare at the other. “ What 
is the good of putting down ‘lunch' simply? Any 
fool could do that. The very reason I asked you to 
draw up a list was that I might see if you had ordered 
enough grub.'' 

“ I’ve spoken to Mrs. Taylor and Wilkins,” began 
Graycote. 

. “ Yes, I think I see you going into the housekeep- 
er's room, and remarking casually that you wanted 
a little luncheon putting up for to-morrow — ‘ just a 
snack of something, Mrs. Taylor ' — (like that) — 
when you know that a grown man, and four growing 
lads, are going out for the day.” 

“ Really Jack—” 

‘‘ O, I know you’ve got the appetite of a tom-tit. 
But think of the other three lads — not to mention 
Beige!” 

“ But surely you can trust Mrs. Taylor to — ” 

“To give us everything that is necessary, and many 
things that aren’t, if you will only explain the circum- 
stances. Mrs. Taylor's a brick, if you only tell her 
what you want.” 

Jack had worked himself up to a fine affectation of 
extreme irascibility. But John knew him, and excused 
his rudeness. Diamonds was given to little outbursts 
of this sort. 

“ Make out your own list, old man,” said the quiet 


CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 


7 


Clubs. It shall be carried out to the smallest detail.” 

Then, of course, Jack felt how very rude he had 
been. 

Fm beastly sorry, John ! Fm a regular pig!_ But 
you know I wasn’t thinking only of myself.” 

‘‘ Don’t believe you were thinking of yourself at 
all.” 

‘‘ Wasn’t I, though ! ” 

Well, now, do make some suggestions.” 

‘‘ No, old man,” said the penitent Jack, I mustn’t 
make a suggestion, and won’t. Only tell Mrs. Taylor 
how many people are going. It’s sure to be all right.” 

“ You see I put ‘ pickles ’ first on the list to show 
that I hadn’t forgotten.” 

“ You’re the most considerate fellow on earth. 
Ah ! ” remarked Jack as he looked down the list again, 
“ glad you’re bringing waterproofs and umbrellas. 
Couldn’t you add goloshes? Might be useful, you 
know. Oh! and White’s Selhorne, and Walton’s 
Angler. Might have thrown in ‘ Sand ford and Mer- 
ton ’ while you were about it. Hullo ! what’s this ? 
Flute! John, my boy, you don’t mean to say that 
you’ve taken up the flute since Christmas ? ” 

I thought you’d be pleased,” said Clubs, with a 
half sigh. ‘‘ I was hoping it would be a pleasant sur- 
prise.” 

“ So it is, old fellow,” exclaimed Jack, seizing his 
friend’s hand. ‘‘And I forgive you not mentioning 


8 


JACK SOUTH 

it in your letters. Fm awfully pleased. Bring it 
down to us this evening, won’t you? We can have 
some duets.” 

“ Fm only a learner, you know. Mr. Burton has 
been giving me lessons, and Fve got rather a good 
instrument.” 

“ Bravo ! I shall bring my banjo on board to-mor- 
row. We must make that little beggar Gidlow sing. 
I say, John, what a voice that lad has got! Beats 
any fellow or any woman, Fve ever heard.” 

‘‘ My father says he has never heard such a perfect 
treble in any cathedral choir.” 

“ Yet the chap is singing in a poky little village 
church on Sundays and weeding your garden — I beg 
your pardon, John; Fm getting rude again.” 

“ No, you’re not. It is a shame; but what’s to be 
done ?” 

“ Heaps of things — but, I say, I shall miss the 
dad if I don’t look sharp! We must put our heads 
together about Gidlow.” 

The two friends had unconsciously wandered out 
of the pleasure grounds into the open park. Driving 
slowly down the gravelled roadway that led from the 
hall, they saw Dr. South. 

‘‘Good-bye, John! I must run for it!” said Jack, 
starting off. Then turning round for a moment he 
shouted, still running, “ Be sure to order lots of lemon- 
ade.” 

John Graycote laughed softly as he walked back to 


CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 


9 


the hall. ‘‘What a surprise I’ll give him to-morrow,” 
he said to himself. “Dear old Jack! If only I’d a 
brother like him. But it’s just as good. If I’d had 
a brother, I should have been sent to school. That 
might have been pleasant, and we might, perhaps, 
have gone to Eton together. But as I haven’t a 
brother, and as I have Jack twice in the year. I’m con- 
tent. It’s lucky I showed him the list. I do believe 
I gave Mrs. Taylor the notion that I was going out 
alone. What a mess we should have been in! Jack 
thinks of everybody and everything.” 

The people in the village would have told you that 
Mr. John Graycote was a little “ odd.” Some would 
have said “ old-fashioned.” In a limited degree he 
was both. He was what the circumstances of his 
life had made him. The only child of a peer who was 
trying to get back what his ancestors had let slip — 
trying to repair by economy what his immediate 
predecessors had squandered in dissipation, John 
Graycote had led a somewhat lonely and, what would 
have been to many lads of his station, a monotonous 
life. When he was eight years old he had been seized 
with an illness which but for the timely and skilful 
treatment of Dr. South would have been fatal. A 
long and aggravated attack of rheumatic fever had 
left him weak and ailing. From -his birth he had 
never been a healthy child, and from the time of his 
long illness he had been regarded as an invalid — by 
his parents, at least. For him school was out of the 


10 


JACK SOUTH 

question. Mr. Burton — the rector of Gray cote — - 
came to the hall four days in the week to superintend 
the lad’s studies. Happily for the young heir, the 
Rev. Mark Burton was an interesting teacher and a 
genial companion. A comparatively young man and 
an ardent naturalist, the parson-tutor succeeded in 
making his pupil as fond of the woods and the fields 
as he himself was; and as the lad was too fragile to 
turn to any sport except a very little mild cricket and 
tennis and, when the weather was warm, an occasional 
day’s fishing — rambles in the park, saunterings in 
the home-meadows, and loiterings in garden and 
shrubbery, made up the chief pleasures of his life. 

Lord Graycote was a politician, and a political as 
well as a domestic economist. He was also an en- 
thusiastic gardener. Some of his neighbors would 
tell you that his lordship made his garden pay, and it 
was without doubt the largest and best kept in the 
county. Accordingly, his gardener was an impor- 
tant person, earning an important salary. 

Lord Graycote did not advertise the fact, never- 
theless it was a fact that the garden (that is, the 
garden as Davison had made it) went a very long way 
towards paying the .household expenses of Graycote 
Hall. Very few guests were entertained there, for 
besides the need there was of a strictly economical 
style of living, Lady Graycote was always ailing and 
generally indisposed to receive visitors. The Gray- 
cotes saw but little of their neighbourSo Perhaps Dr. 


, CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 


II 


and Mrs. South and their children were the only 
callers who were always welcomed. 

Some of the more aristocratic persons in the locality 
marvelled that Lady Graycote should receive the wife 
of a country surgeon — even though she could claim 
to be a daughter of Sir Andrew Barleigh. In fact 
society fretted over the fact a good deal. It did not 
help the matter if you reminded society that Mr. South 
was only a country doctor by the accident of choice. 
That one of the most fashionable west-end physicians 
— on the high road to a baronetcy — should have 
come to live in a little town like Graycote was an 
irritating circumstance many people tried to account 
for and failed. But that the Graycotes should have 
taken him up in such a marked way was more irri- 
tating still. However, society took its usual revenge 
by becoming spiteful and sarcastic. 

So convenient, my dear,” it would say to a bosom 
friend, ‘‘ to place a skilled doctor under obligations 
to you. It must be thought of in connection with 
his fees. So nice, so very nice, to have a man of 
that sort at your beck and nod, and tO' contrive that 
a morning call shall do duty for a professional visit.” 
Then society would laugh nastily over its own shrewd- 
ness and perception. 

Perhaps no two men in the wide world disagreed 
over a greater number of subjects than did Lord Gray- 
cote and Dr. South. They regarded almost every- 
thing from totally different points of view. They had 




JACK SOUTH 

mutually distrusted each other for years. They had 
even opposed one another in public speeches and in 
the public press. But when Dr. South had literally 
snatched the hope and heir of the Graycotes from the 
clutches of death, Lord Graycote’s heart went out to 
the doctor with something very like the tenderness of 
personal friendship. 

“If any man other than South had been called, and 
if he had delayed five minutes — your child would 
have been in his coffin at this moment,” said Sir James 
Grayson (who had been telegraphed for at Dr. 
South’s suggestion) to Lord Graycote. “ With such 
complications I have never known a weakly child to 
recover after an attack of this sort.” And the dry- 
as-dust and utterly emotionless Lord Graycote had 
sought out Dr. South, seized his hand and kissed it. 

“ Do be friendly with him, dear,” said Mrs. South 
to her husband, when he recounted this incident. 

“ A man who loves his child so much cannot be con- 
temptible.” 

“ I have never contemned him, Maggie,” the doctor 
said. “We have only met once before, but I must 
say that I. found it hard to like him. However, beings 
friendly depends entirely upon his lordship.” 

After-events proved to Dr. South that Lord Gray- 
cote’s* friendliness was of a very positive order. The 
latter pleaded so hard that little Jack South should be 
allowed to visit John Graycote in his convalescence, 
that the doctor could not find it in his heart to dis- 


CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 


13 


courage such a proceeding, the consequence being that 
before either of the little Johnnies was nine years old, 
they had become fast chums. 

But one fine day society received a shock from 
which, as we have shown, it never recovered. 

Lady Gray cote had called upon Mrs. South! 

From that day her ladyship knew what it was to 
have a friend. And if one has a friend, how entirely 
impotent are the shafts of society! 

Strong and sweet Mrs. South,” as somebody 
named her, had scores of friends. If the doctor’s wife 
had accepted a third of the invitations she was con- 
stantly receiving from different parts of England, the 
village of Graycote would never have been blessed by 
a sight of her. She accepted very few, but sent out 
many. There was generally a home party at the 
South’s. 

People said, ‘‘ That kind of thing can’t go on you 
know. No country practice will support that rate of 
living. Does Dr. South forget that he is not now 
a West-end physician? Where does the money come 
from ” ? 

Then another set of people would say : “ What 

dowdies the South girls are! Don’t believe they’ve 
got a yard of silk in their wardrobe or that they own 
a brooch amongst them. Then, they never drive more 
than one horse, though they own two. And the doc- 
tor never hunts, as old Galton used to do. Perhaps 

he can’t ride.” 

2 


14 


JACK SOUTH 


Dr. South was a veritable puzzle to some of his 
neighbors. They could not understand his motives 
for leaving London and settling in the country. They 
could not understand his style of living and the way 
in which he seemed to combine primitive simplicity 
with almost lordly hospitality. They could not under- 
stand his manners, so unaffected and yet so cultivated. 
I say that some of his neighbors could not understand 
the doctor, and among these were two or three of the 
richest families in and near Graycote. 

There was for instance a family as old as that of 
Graycote itself — the Plissards of Graycote Temple, 
They had used distinctly libellous language in regard 
to the Souths, for no earthly reason as far as the latter 
could make out, except that they had the imperti- 
nence ” to come and live at Graycote, There was a 
retired starch manufacturer named Stickart who also 
resented Dr. South’s presence very warmly. And 
there was a gentleman from the Potteries, Mugleigh 
by name, whose great fear was that the moral tone of 
Graycote would be lastingly lowered by the continued 
residence therein of a parcel of loose Londoners.” 

Dr. South knew the sentiments of these gentlemen 
and their families very well. Knew and laughed over 
them. In fact the doctor was a good deal given to 
laughing and didn’t mind people knowing it. He 
laughed and made constant additions to his house — 
a very good house, by the way, and having at the 
back of it several acres of land. His detractors watched 


CLUBS AND DIAMONDS 


15 


the process of new wings in building, and the lay- 
ing out of bigger gardens and broader lawns — 
watched grimly and opined that the entire place would 
be in the market that time twelve months. 

But it was not 


CHAPTER II 


SPADES AND HEARTS 

“If only Art were suing, mine would plead to purpose.” 

— Browning. 

‘‘ What made young South call you Jack of 
Hearts?'' asked the gardener's son of Jack Gidlow, 
when young Graycote and his friend had left the shrub- 
bery. 

It was just the question the simple country lad was 
asking himself, and he could find no answer to it. 
He had never played at cards in all his innocent life — 
had never, in fact, had a pack of cards in his hand. 
Accordingly he answered, very truthfully, that he 
didn't know. 

‘‘ That’s a blooming lie,” ejaculated Master Davison, 
coming a step nearer to the young laborer and show- 
ing anger in his big fat face. Not a stupid face 
though by any means. Jack Davison had also come 
home for his summer holidays and had brought with 
him from an expensive boarding-school prizes for 
Greek, Latin and mathematics. It was not an ugly 
face either; too fat, perhaps, and sadly wanting in 
refinement, but by no means ugly, except at a moment 
like this when it wore an expression of extreme annoy- 
ance, if not of downright anger. 

Gidlow stepped backward into the laurels. “ Who 

i6 


SPADES AND HEARTS 


17 

was Jack of Hearts, sir?” he asked timidly, faltering 
ever so little. He was not frightened, but as he had 
begun work punctually at six o’clock that morning 
and it was now nearly twelve, and as his breakfast 
had been confined to tea and bread-and-dripping, he 
did not feel himself quite up to fighting mark. More- 
over, he had been weeding, and six hours of weeding 
with only ten minutes interval for light refreshment 
is apt to take something out of a boy of fourteen. 

None of your cheek, you whining little fool! ” ex- 
claimed Davison. He had a half suspicion that Gidlow 
was chaffing him. 

“ I’ve never heard of him,” said the younger lad, 
the pure pink of his cheeks deepening a little, for 
Davison had taken him by the arm and was clutching 
him rather tightly. After the manner of his kind, 
the toiler had thrown off coat and waistcoat, and the 
sleeves of his shirt were rolled up above the elbow. 
Davison’s fingers were strong upon that bare arm. 

But the big lad paused for a moment. The clear 
blue eyes looking straight up into his own angry face 
had not a suspicion of mischief in them at that mo- 
ment. They were inquiring, wondering eyes, charged 
with a present anxiety. Davison changed his tactics. 

What a precious ninny you must be!” he ejac- 
ulated, letting go of Gidlow’s arm. “ D’ye mean to 
say that you never played at all fours, or cribbage, or 
whist, or — beggar-my-neighbor ? That would be 
about your size I reckon.” 


i8 


JACK SOUTH 


No, sir,’’ said Gidlow, somewhat relieved, but a 
little ashamed of his ignorance. 

^'Lor! what a hole this is,” said Davison, planting 
his hands deeply into the side pockets of his coat and 
stretching his legs very wide apart. What a beastly 
hole,” he went on, surveying the noble shrubbery 
in which he was standing with what was meant to be 
an air of contempt. ‘‘ How do these cads manage to 
exist ? ” 

But Johnny Gidlow’s ears were listening to a little 
burst of song from a near hedgerow, and his eyes were 
following the flight of a linnet. 

The striking of a big clock in the stable-yard at 
length reminded him of his dinner-hour. It was 
twelve o’clock. His adversary was whistling softly 
to himself and appeared to be considering how to 
deal with such an ignorant little cad as the one before 
him. Gidlow by way of a gentle reminder — how 
he was aching for his dinner ! — began to unroll his 
shirt sleeves as a preliminary to the putting on of his 
coat. The gardener’s son took out his watch. It 
was a gold one, so at least Gidlow thought. He sup- 
posed that a boy with a gold watch must be a gentle- 
man. A minute or two ago the little lad had been 
debating within' himself whether or not he should say 
‘‘ Sir ” to this boy of fifteen, and the son of a man 
who was his employer and master. The gold watch 
decided it. 

“ I’ve got to go to dinner, sir,” said Gidlow, 


SPADES AND HEARTS 


19 


“ Have you, now ? ” said Davison smiling, though 
not very pleasantly. Got to go to dinner, have you? 
Well, don’t be in a hurry, Fve not quite done with 
you yet.” 

Gidlow looked in the direction of a certain small 
bundle which was lying under a tree at the far end 
of the shubbery. That bundle was not visible to him 
because it was covered by his coat. But he could see 
the coat from where he stood. 

“ About that Jack of Hearts, you know,” said 
Davison, getting quite jocular; “I am going to tell 
you who he is and all about him.” 

The hungry boy sighed and smoothed down the 
sleeves of his shirt. 

That Jack of Hearts is not a particularly nice 
fellow, you know. Not at all the sort of fellow I 
should like to be named after.” 

Gidlow thought his master’s son more unpleasant 
when he laughed than when he looked angry. The 
anxious look came back into the blue eyes. Davison 
saw it and laughed more noisily than ever. He would 
have no end of a lark with this green little kid,” 
he thought to himself. 

Mind, I know nothing about it,” said Master 
Davison checking his merriment and putting on a look 
of great seriousness. ‘‘ It may or may not be a case 
for the reformatory; I only go by what young South 
said. Perhaps they might let you off with a birching.” 

Davison saw that every word was telling upon the 


20 JACK SOUTH 

unsophisticated lad. It was what he intended, and he 
rejoiced. 

“Thieving ain’t a nice thing, is it now? Well, to 
call a fellow * Jack of Hearts ’ is the same thing as 
calling him a thief.” 

The hungry hard-worked lad turned pale. He had 
all a country boy’s dread of the majesty of the law, 
and, though he had never so much as robbed an orchard 
in his life, the mere sight of a policeman made him 
uncomfortable. 

But his enemy would not spare .him. 

“ I can show it to you in black and white if you 
don’t believe me,” said Davison. “ It’s in poetry and 
it runs like this: 

‘ It was the wicked Jack of Hearts 
That took and stole the raspberry tarts. ** 

Davison was not prepared for what followed. 

Johnny Gidlow had never heard of the examen of 
conscience, but a very rapid survey of his past life 
convinced him that whatever Jack of Hearts might 
have effected in the raspberry-tart-stealing line, he, 
Johnny Gidlow, had never once cast eyes on such 
delicacies. 

The enemy had indeed over-reached himself ab- 
surdly. The boy before him had never played a game 
of cards ; but he was no fool for all that. 

“ You’re joking me, sir,” he answered respectfully, 
but with the tone of one who had made up his mind 


SPADES AND HEARTS 


21 


and knew what he was going to do. I must go and 
get my dinner now.” 

And before Davison had recovered from his sur- 
prise, Johnny Gidlow had disappeared among the 
laurels. 

The laboring boy had not seen very much of 
Davison, though that young man had been at home a 
week or two. When they had met, the gardener’s 
son had generally addressed him as ‘‘ Kid,” ordering 
him here and there, and sending him to fetch this or 
that. But as the ‘‘ Kid ” had been taught to order 
himself lowly and reverently to all his betters, and as 
there was no doubt in his mind but that young Davi- 
son was one of the said betters, Gidlow had obeyed 
dutifully. Davison, senior, had engaged the boy to 
work in Lord Graycote’s garden ; and as this situation 
had been Johnny’s only alternative to bird-tenting or 
plough-driving, he had accepted the post very thank- 
fully. Indeed he was not a little proud of his connec- 
tion with the Hall garden. His father had worked 
there for a matter of thirty years and had never risen 
above the rank of a laborer, had never earned more 
than fifteen shillings a week. Johnny was earning 
six, which was a shilling a day ; and the working day 
had at least eleven hours in it. Still, the young lad 
persuaded himself that he was doing well. 

To-day, as he removed his fustian jacket from the 
little dinner bundle, he was just a trifle troubled. His 


22 


JACK SOUTH 


father had often impressed upon him the wisdom of 
‘‘ keeping in with the Davisons.” Johnny asked him- 
self for the twentieth time how he managed to ‘‘ get 
out ” with young John Davison. He had run on 
errands for this stylish school-boy, had brought to- 
bacco and cigars from the village shop for him, taken 
letters to various places (some of them by no means 
on his way home) after his work was done, and 
Davison had rewarded him for these services by throw- 
ing him a cigar, which Johnny dared not smoke, but 
which he had given to a grown-up brother. Johnny’s 
philosophy was a limited one, to be sure, but he could 
not understand how Davison contrived to have a 
grievance against him. 

He called to mind the previous scene in the shrub- 
bery when young Mr. South discovered that they were 

all Jacks.” Mr. Graycote had been discussing ar- 
rangements for the morrow and had asked Gidlow 
what his Christian name was. South had immediately 
turned to Davison with the same question, and both 
Graycote and his friend thought the coincidence a 
good joke. South never dreamt that his subsequent 
remark would disturb the gardener’s son. He had, 
however, annoyed that young man a good deal. Gid- 
low had noticed the flush of displeasure and did not 
understand the meaning of his own new title. He 
would like to ask Mr. South about it, he thought. 
But he was much too shy a bOy to put such a thought 
into execution; he knew that very well. 


SPADES AND HEARTS 


23 


I will ask John Davison, though,’’ he said to him- 
self, eating big munches of bread to a pitiful atom of 
bacon. I’ll wait till he’s in a good humor. I’ll ask 
him some day when I’ve been doing something for 
him. Perhaps this hot weather makes him nasty.” 

He had dismissed the tart-stealing episode from his 
mind altogether. In fact, as the bread and bacon dis- 
appeared, he forgot to think even of Davison. To- 
morrow he was going up the river with the “ young 
lord ” and Mr. South. He did not at all know what 
it would be like. He had never been on such an ex- 
pedition before. Of course he anticipated a good deal 
of work of some sort; had he not been taught that he 
had come into the world on purpose to work hard? 
But rowing, if that were required of him, would be 
a change from weeding. And he would hear my lord’s 
son and his friend laugh and talk as they were wont 
to do in the garden, and he enjoyed that a good deal. 
They were to be out all day, too, and would that 
mean — ? he did not know what to think about dinner. 
Perhaps as the gentlemen dined in the evening they 
would not want anything. He could not fancy Mr. 
Graycote and the doctor’s son eating in an open boat. 

To be sure Davison would be there, but then in 
such circumstances he would be in a good temper. 
Gidlow had noticed that the gardener’s son was pleased 
when Mr. Graycote asked him to join the party. And 
as Johnny stretched himself out under the shade of 
the spreading tree to take the remaining twenty min- 


24 


JACK SOUTH 


utes of his dinner-hour in repose, he fell again to won- 
dering on the significance of ‘ Jack of Hearts ’ and the 
unaccountable resentment of the gardener’s son. 

He would never have guessed what had, in the first 
place, roused young Davison’s dislike of him. The 
day before had been Sunday, and the gardener’s son 
had accompanied his father to the parish church. Now 
it happened that as the people were dispersing, the 
Davisons were immediately in the rear of Dr. South’s 
family and visitors. One of the last mentioned — a 
young lady — began to address her hostess almost as 
soon as they had cleared the church porch. 

“Who is that dear little boy with the white gold 
hair and the voice of an angel ? ” 

Davison heard the question, and saw Mrs. South 
turn to her friend with a pleased expression of coun- 
tenance which to him was maddening. 

“ He is our only artist,” Mrs. South was beginning ; 
but Davison pushed ahead and heard no more. He 
allowed the words to rankle in his mind, though, and 
when on the following morning Jack South dubbed 
the little laborer “ Jack of Hearts,” Davison was 
enraged. 

“ A dirty little clod-hopper like that to attract every- 
body’s notice ! ” he said to himself as he put on the 
stick-up collar — so unbecoming, if he had only known 
it — and the variegated tie of which he was so vain, 
and which he had persuaded himself made him look 
at least three years older. 


SPADES AND HEARTS 


25 


A boy of eighteen may be forgiven for wishing to 
look a little like a grown man; a boy of fifteen — 
never. Strange that a matter of two or three years 
should make all the difference; but it is precisely a 
case in which the principle of a little more and how 
much it is ” may be applied. 

How could such jealousy have arisen so quickly and 
with so little reason? If Davison had seen Gidlow 
taken apart by the great people who attended Graycote 
church — taken apart and petted and made much of 
— why even then there would have been no excuse for 
the bigger and better educated and better cared-for 
lad’s ill feeling. But the ridiculous part of the busi- 
ness was that Gidlow had never been petted, had 
never received particular notice from anybody. As a 
mere question of fact, his singing had attracted atten- 
tion, had been highly praised and his entire person 
made the subject of much conversation in Graycote 
drawing-rooms. But the “ dear little lad with white 
gold hair and the voice of an angel ” had been sing- 
ing in the parish church for five years, had gone to 
the village school daily till he was thirteen-and-a-half 
and since that time had worked eleven hours a day 
in Lord Graycote’s garden with little or no recogni- 
tion. 

He is a very good little lad,” Mr. Burton used to 
say to various wealthy parishioners who praised Gid- 
low’s singing — ‘‘a very innocent boy indeed, and 
quite free from vanity of a palpable sort. I have 


26 


JACK SOUTH 


never taken much notice of him and don’t intend to 
do so. It is a very dangerous thing to praise lads of 
that class, and a very easy thing to spoil them for 
life.” 

That class more than any other? ” asked the laugh- 
ing Dr. South one day to the Rev. Mark Burton, after 
a speech of this kind. 

“ Oh, undoubtedly,” said the parson. “ It is very 
easy to make them discontented with their surround- 
ings.” 

I can well believe that,” the doctor had rejoined, 
laughing so much more than the circumstances seemed 
to require that the rector looked puzzled. But the 
doctor changed the subject.. 

Johnny Gidlow had indeed fancied that he was an 
object of interest to various ladies and gentlemen who 
met him in the village street from time to time, and 
to whom he doffed his cap with becoming respect. 
But he had been too much confused to look them in 
the face and had never noticed the eye-glasses that 
were levelled at him, or suspected that he was being 
discussed by these great people. Once, and once only 
had a little sweet if indirect praise been given him, 
and that had remained a holy memory to the boy ever 
since. 

A very old clergyman had come to preach a special 
sermon one Sunday evening. In the choir vestry, after 
service, he had walked up to Johnny and placing his 
hands on the child’s hair had said — 


SPADES AND HEARTS 


27 

May God bless you, my dear little lad. I came 
to preach to you, but you have preached to me.” 

Then the old clergyman had put something into the 
boy’s hand, something that Johnny thought was a 
medal, but which his mother thankfully recognized 
as a crown piece. 

Yes, Davison’s jealousy was as unreasonable as 
that vice generally is. 

But it had its origin in a fact which the gardener’s 
son was very loath to admit to himself and quite un- 
willing to admit to any other person. 

Little by little during the last week or two in which 
he had been at home, the conviction had been grow- 
ing in his mind that a very favorite theory of his, 
and one highly approved at the school he had been sent 
to, would not hold water. The theory was that every 
person of the lower orders was a cad. It was disturb- 
ing, then, to come across a lad who certainly ought 
to have been, but somehow was not, a cad. Clad in 
cassock and surplice and seated in the chancel of the 
parish church, Johnny might have been mistaken for a 
boy prince; and even when he was working in the 
garden, there was nothing in his dress or appearance 
in any way offensive or that proclaimed the ill-bred 
rustic. To the pretentious Jack of Spades (whose 
father had once been in the very same position of life 
as Johnny Gidlow) these circumstances were puzzling 
and vexatious. 


CHAPTER III 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 

Has come the time of sweet serenity 
When color glows unglittering, and the soul 
Of visible things shows silent happiness. 

— George Eliot. 

The boys had a delightful row up the river and 
reached Tishley Wood by half-past ten. 

A jolly long day before us,’^ said Jack South. 
‘‘ John, is it beetle-hunting first and fishing after- 
wards, or vice versa? ” 

‘‘ Business first,’^ answered Graycote. 

‘‘ Thanks. I finished business at six o^clock on 
Friday evening last. But of course I give in. Fetch 
up your pots and pans, your pill-boxes and specimen 
glasses, and let us bottle the bumptious beetle. But 
mind ! fishing from luncheon till we start back ! ” 
“Certainly, Jack! But IVe got an idea.’' 

“ Well, hold on to it for a minute, if — ” 

But Graycote was saying something in French. It 
had occurred to him that Davison and Gidlow might 
be hungry. “ You were so strong on the matter yes- 
terday,” he added, “that I determined not to forget 
the other two lads.” 

“ I said three. But I’m not hungry, old man. Gid- 
28 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


29 


low is certain to be. I saw him dining one day. John, 
you’ve no idea what poor grub he gets ! It has cured 
me of grumbling at School, even on salt-horse days. 
No doubt Davison has breakfasted well, but for the 
sake of Beige and the other chap — open the larder ! ” 

They had been whispering together at the bottom of 
the boat, and now Clubs opened one of the big hampers. 
There were lime trees in the neighborhood, but their 
scent was immediately overpowered. 

Hearts, my laddie ! ” cried the Doctor’s son, “ you 
look as if you’d lived on milk and cherries all your 
life. Do just try this — What is it, John? O, I see 
— this game pie ! It’s ever so much better than it 
looks.” 

John was casting about for knife and fork and 
spoon. 

“ Now, John, you know you can’t carve. Allow 
me to let daylight into that confection. Gidlow, the 
plates are in that hamper. Davison, some pie? 

Johnny Gidlow’s cheeks were burning with con- 
fusion and delight. 

“ It’s a case of ‘ lark and leveret lay.’ ” said Jack, 
putting an entire bird on each plate. John, you’ve 
done your duty nobly. Upon my word Tve half a 
mind — ” 

“ Do, old fellow. Gidlow, another plate ? ” 

“ John ! ” — the Doctor’s son spoke with much 
solemnity — '' I’m an only son. Of course there are 
girls. ^ Nevertheless, I want to live.” 


30 


JACK SOUTH 

They were still speaking in an undertone. Each 
of them took a morsel of pie — “ to keep the other 
fellows in countenance,” as Jack expressed it. 

You see this pie? ” said Jack to Gidlow, who was 
enjoying himself hugely, but managed to articulate a 
husky “ Yes, sir.” 

‘‘ Well, it’s only a specimen of the kind of thing 
we’ve got to get through somehow. Ready for some 
more. Beige ? ” 

Beige was slowly ploughing through a wedge of 
cold pie sufficient to dine a family. He tried hard to 
speak, but failed through alternate laughing and chok- 
ing. 

“ Davison, a tartlet ? Are they strawberry or rasp- 
berry, John? ” 

Johnny Gidlow glanced at Davison, but that young 
man was still struggling with his game pie. 

Gidlow, one of these patties ? ” 

But Johnny could only look up and smile. It was 
clear he would not be through for the next ten min- 
utes. 

The restlessly active South made a dive into the 
bottom of the boat. 

‘‘ Good! ” exclaimed John. Banjo by all means.” 

‘‘ Which it’s a guitar,” said Jack, hauling the instru- 
ment out of its case. Let the sleeping flute lie low, 
John. I’m going to sing. Hearts, you nightingale, 
forgive my, audacity. I shall only attempt a serio- 
comic song. Be quiet, John, I will tootle. It’s a song 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 31 

I made myself — words and music — and I’m proud 
of it. If you don’t like it, you needn’t encore.” 

‘‘ Bravo, Jack! This is a treat.” 

“ Do listen to the opening symphony.” 

Jack South was much more than a boy amateur on 
any instrument. The Doctor himself was devoted 
to the art, as indeed was every member of the family. 
It was still an open question whether Jack should not 
go to Leipsic. His own mind was quite made up on 
the subject, but he was too dutiful a son to insist upon 
anything against his father’s will. Still, he was full 
of hope on the subject, and he had succeeded in win- 
ning his mother’s consent. 

John Gidlow forgot his pie — to be sure, he was no 
longer hungry — as the lute strings began to tinkle, 
and South’s nimble fingers made Summer melody. 

'' It’s a ‘ Ballade of the Orchard,’ ” Jack called out 
as he worked away at the introduction. 

The south wind swept across the river; the slow 
water glided onward to the sea; a boy’s pure con- 
tralto filled the riverside with melody. 

In the season of blossoms, of flowers and of grasses, 

(Gone are the chill storms, cold and sleet) 

Come where the Spring in her ecstasy passes 
With ivory fingers and rose-pink feet; 

Come to the orchard-croft’s retreat. 

And as the low winds in the branches hum. 

Say, is there blossom on earth so sweet 
As the bloom of the apple and pear and plum ! 

When the world is a tangle of flowers, and tasses 
Of succory climb o’er the garden seat. 


32 


JACK SOUTH 


The far bells chiming are musical glasses, 

The pulse of the hour scarce seems to beat, 

And the present is true as the past is a cheat; 

To the orchard, hearties, hasten and come, 

There is sweetsome shade from the midsummer heat 
’Neath the leaves of the apple, and pear, and plum. 

Where the bindweed climbs in its mischievous masses, 

A fruit-fetrewn lawn shall the Autumn greet, 

A banquet spread for laddies and lasses. 

Rose-bloom sweets for the rosy to eat. 

Gold for the golden children meet; 

Shake the thick clusters, or even though some 
.Lie on the broad white daisy sheet — 

Fruit of the apple and pear and plum. 

ENVOI. 

Chicks ! to the orchard when little lambs bleat. 

And ever in Summer with John for a chum; 

But wait for me in the time of wheat 
When ripe are the apple, and pear, and plum. 

There was a storm of applause as Jack twanged 
the last note on his guitar, Beige joining in with en- 
thusiasm. Graycote cried encore till he was hoarse. 
But Jack rose to his feet and bowing, now to one end 
of the boat now to the other, after the manner of a 
professional singer, declined the encore with such an 
exaggeration of politeness that all the boys were con- 
vulsed with laughter. 

“ John, if you don’t instantly produce lemonade, 
I throw myself into the river.” He had resumed his 
seat, and was beginning to strum a lively little gavotte. 
‘‘ There is poor Gidlow choked with thirst : can’t finish 
his pie for want of a drink.” 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


33 


Johnny had indeed become oblivious of food. To 
him music was as strong wine, and if he was thirsty 
he did not know it. 

‘‘ I made such a point of the lemonade,” said Jack, 
twanging away at his guitar, and pretending not to 
notice that his friend was pulling bottle after bottle 
of the sparkling water out of a three dozen case. 

‘‘ Ah ! then you didn’t forget it after all ? ” he went 
on as John handed him a tall glass. 

I’ve forgotten nothing but the tin cases and pill- 
boxes for the insects,” said Graycote. 

‘‘Just as it should be — we’ll get to fishing all the 
sooner, if we haven’t driven away all the fishes.” 

“ Give us the ballade again. Jack, that will make the 
fishes swarm. By the way, did you really compose 
that for the occasion ? ” 

“Well, for an occasion; that is, for a similar oc- 
casion. But of course it was written for you.” Jack 
laid aside his guitar, and devoted himself to the lemon- 
ade. “ But give us a little tootling, John.” 

John never thought of disobeying this keen, bright 
chum of his, with the dark merry eyes of an Italian, 
and the thick short black curls which seemed to lie 
about his head like a perfectly fitting cap. 

“ Can’t do much. Jack, but what say you to a bit 
of the Carnival ? ” 

“ Why, that I’ll help you with guitar accompani- 
ment.” 

Gidlow was completely absorbed in what followed. 


34 


JACK SOUTH 


and Davison and Beige were more than content to lie 
on the thick boat cushions and listen to such harmony 
on such a day. 

It requires the violin, Jack,” said Graycote at the 
close of the performance. 

Not a word, John ! You are becoming a musician.” 
And the merry Jack, loath to put away the guitar, 
broke into an extemporary stanza. 

“There was a time, a well-remembered time — 

(No doubt in May) 

When — John my boy, I cannot get a rhyme — 

You weren’t so gay ! ” 

‘‘ True enough. Jack. But do you think there’s any 
music in me? ” 

Of course there is. Heaps. There’s music in 
every boy.” 

One boy was listening eagerly. 

“True, but have I got the — what d’ye call it? — 
the inspiration? I know I am not an Apollo like 
you — ” 

“ Like Gidlow, you mean. He’s the only Apollo in 
the company. Gidlow, forgive my calling you names,” 
Jack said, turning to the blushing chorister. “ Re- 
member, now, you’re Jack of Hearts, alias Apollo. If 
I hadn’t given you the names myself I should turn 
green with jealousy.” 

Jack turned such a bright face on the working boy 
that, although the latter was more mystified than ever, 
it was clear to him that young Mr. South meant to 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 35 

be complimentary. Davison was unpacking the fish- 
ing tackle. 

Graycote suggested that as it was nearly half-past 
eleven they should take a stroll in the wood. There 
was one particular beetle he wanted to bag, he said: 
after that he would return. 

''Will you go with us?’’ said Jack to Beige and 
the boys. 

" Don’t if you’d rather remain here,” put in Gray- 
cote. 

" Of course they would, John,” said South as he 
and his friend stepped ashore. Davison was follow- 
ing close behind. 

" O, you want to come? Very good,” said Graycote. 
" Well, Beige and Gidlow may remain in the boat.” 

" Beige is asleep already,” said Jack. Then he 
called to Gidlow from the bank — "Hearts (that is 
Apollo) lie down and have a gentle nap. Remember, 
you’ve got to ' strike the lyre ’ after luncheon.” 

Davison was on the point of forgetting himself. 
He had turned round savagely to South; but for- 
tunately that young gentleman was pre-occupied with 
the ludicrous appearance of Beige, who was just be- 
ginning to snore horribly. Suddenly it occurred to 
Davison that the phrase " strike the lyre ” had a mere- 
ly musical significance. All the same he was careful 
to attach himself to Mr. Graycote rather than to the 
other. 

Johnny Gidlow, stretching himself out on the bottom 


36 


JACK SOUTH 


of the boat as South suggested, felt no inclination to 
sleep. His brain was in a tumult with the unexpected 
pleasure of the holiday, and the conversation that had 
gone on from the moment of starting — the brilliance 
of young South — the song and the music of flute 
and guitar. He had had no work to do after the 
hampers were put on board. South had elected him- 
self captain before anybody got into the boat. 

“ No, John,” he had said to his friend. You sit 
there — on that double cushion — and steer. Beige 
says he can’t row if he’s not given a couple of oars. 
I take one, and Davison the other. Gidlow, you shall 
take my oar if I faint; otherwise you will please con- 
sider yourself a guest.” 

Such a day had never come to him before. The 
heir of the Graycotes had served him with delicate 
food and sparkling drink; had waited upon him, Gid- 
low, the garden boy! He had been lost in admira- 
tion of the gentlemen in their simple but graceful 
boating costume. He had felt so mean by the side 
of Davison, who wore patent leather boots and such 
a very pronounced tweed suit, such a very high collar 
and brilliant necktie, and a ring on the little finger 
of one hand. Even Mr. Graycote, and Mr. John South 
did not wear rings. And he, Gidlow, was among this 
splendid company, in corduroys and a white linen 
jacket and such clumsy boots. 

But then, he had joined the party in character of 
servant, he told himself; still, he remembered what 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


37 


very spruce people were the hall servants — butler, 
footman and page. He wondered Mr. Graycote had 
not brought with him that elegant page, for instance, a 
boy who was not of the village and who always looked 
so neat and was so lightly shod. 

Johnny Gidlow, alias Jack of Hearts, alias Apollo, 
looked at himself critically. He possessed only one 
pair of boots, and they were on his feet. Well, but 
even if they were a mass of iron and coarse leather, 
hadn’t he polished them well? He looked at his linen 
jacket; it was very white and clean. And his mother 
had pinned a collar round his neck for the occasion — 
a big broad collar like the ones worn by Mr. Graycote 
and Mr. South — stiff and well starched too ; for Mrs. 
Gidlow got up linen for Dr. South’s family regularly, 
and got it up very well. Then he called to mind a 
recent (very plain) sermon of Mr. Burton’s on vanity, 
and blushed for himself. 

Beige was still sleeping, and Johnny rejoiced that he 
was practically alone. He had many things to think 
over as he lay in the boat listening to the gentle ripple 
of the river and the bird-music of the neighboring 
wood. Once he caught a faint echo of the guitar. 

The love of music had come to him when he lay, 
a little baby, on his mother’s knee. His mother had 
been a singer, and her local reputation was great; but 
she rarely sang now-a-days. She was an old woman 
in appearance, though she was only three and forty. 
Life had not pressed so heavily upon her when Johnny 


38 JACK SOUTH 

was an infant, and his ears opened out to the music 
of a really beautiful voice. She was fond of telling 
her neighbors — less restrained in their opinions of 
Johnny than the well-to-do — how that almost his 
first articulate words were — Mammy, ting ! ” So 
she had sung to him for hours together, and to her 
great joy she found, as he grew up, that he had in- 
herited her gift. 

In the wood beyond, John Graycote was rejoicing 
in the capture of a very fine specimen of the Xantho- 
linus Glabratus. 

We’ll go back as soon as you like now,” he was 
saying to his chum. 

What an awful beast!” exclaimed Jack, holding 
the underside of his guitar for the insect to crawl up- 
on. Don’t tell me his wretched name. Hullo ! John, 
bottle him instantly, or he’ll bolt! Tearing a poor 
thing away — from his ants, like that.” 

Jack, you’re not nearly so keen about this sort of 
thing as you were last Summer.” 

“ Think not ? I believe you are right. But you 
know the reason.” 

I can see that you are getting music-mad, old fel- 
low, and that everything else has to give way to it. 
Quite right, too, under the circumstances.” 

‘‘ Glad you think so, John. I’m not so sure of the 
rightness of it. But really, when a fellow is tingling 
all over with music, what is he to do? I take it that 
nature would not have crammed me so full of it, if 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


39 


she had not intended me to let it out occasionally.” 

‘‘Ah!” said Graycote, “that’s just what I can’t 
understand. You know how I love music; yet I 
could no more devote myself to it for a whole day 
together than I could spend an entire day in letter- 
writing.” 

“ Oh, it’s all a matter of training and development. 
You see, I’ve been brought up on music, while you are 
only just beginning really to like it.” 

“ It’s more than mere training. Jack; you know that 
very well. I shall never be able to extemporise on any 
instrument, other than a Jew’s-harp, as long as I live; 
while, on the other hand, there’s hardly an instrument 
in existence from which you cannot get music at your 
pleasure.” 

“ John, if you don’t get off that tack, I’ll tie a big 
stone to the banjo, and drop it into the river, for the 
fishes to play upon with their fins and tails. The river 
floats to the sea; perhaps my lute might find its way 
into the hands of a mermaid.” 

The three lads were just sighting the water through 
the trees. 

“ Hope the Drymo hasn’t spirited away our bark 
and its contents,” said Graycote. “ By-the-way, shall 
we lunch on board, or in that little opening of the 
wood ? ” 

“ In the wood — if the shade over the boat has 
narrowed itself within the last hour, as I suspect. Ah ! 
bravo, Gidlow! Tidying up I see. That’s right.” 


40 JACK SOUTH 

Johnny had whispered himself into a pleasant doze, 
but had woke up to find the hot sun beating down up- 
on him. Then it occurred to him that the boat looked 
untidy after the half-past ten snack, and he began to 
put things in order. For this child of the people had 
a great sense of neatness — perhaps inherited from his 
mother, who had been waging war against dust and 
dirt all her life through. 

“ If that fat old Beige isn’t asleep still ! ” exclaimed 
South as they neared the boat. John, I must seran- 
ade him.” 

Making a signal for silence. Jack stepped softly to 
the side of the boat, bending for a moment over the 
snoring boatman with mock tenderness; then taking 
his guitar he assumed the stage attitude of a lover — 
gazing into the summer sky with a woe-begone ex- 
pression of countenance which was almost too much 
for the spectators. 

H’sh-h-h,” whispered South to the three boys who 
were trying to suppress their laughter — “ He might 
wake, you know.” 

Then Jack began the softest of tinkling preludes, 
and casting his eye upon an imaginary star, sang the 
following pianissimo — 

“Happy be thy dreams, 

Sweet Beige! 

Over rippling streams 
Summer starlight gleams 
And music’s golden themes. 

Sweet Beige! 

Re-echo through thy dreams.” 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


41 


It would be hard to say which of the three lads 
laughed the loudest as South, still standing by the boat 
side, caressed the guitar more and more tenderly, and 
kept his eyes fixed on the afternoon sky. They could 
repress their mirth no longer. Gidlow was lying in 
the bottom of the boat choking with laughter, and 
even John had thrown himself upon the grass. Davi- 
son made the wood ring with loud guffaws. 

The deep ground-bass of Beige’s steady snoring 
was not a greater contrast to the tinkling of the lute, 
than was the fat perspiring face and wide open mouth 
of the man to the love-lorn countenance of the 
musician. Jack was just thinking out another stanza, 
when a sudden lurch on the part of Beige showed that 
he was on the point of waking. 

In a moment South disappeared up the bank, and 
ran behind a tree. 

Beige’s dazed expression of countenance as he looked 
about him produced a fresh burst of laughter, in which 
South joined heartily. Johnny Gidlow turned his back 
to the man who was stretching himself out . and talk- 
ing sleepily to himself as he tried to rise. Johnny 
wished that he could creep into one of the hampers 
in order to laugh unseen. He was afraid Beige would 
think they had been making game of him. 

‘‘ I did think they’d cum to fetch me, sure-ly,” the 
waking man exclaimed, blinking his eyes a good deal. 
“ I ’eerd the ’arpers ’arping wi’ their ’arps — quite 
plain like. But I didn’t feel as if I was a-going just 


42 


JACK SOUTH 

then; one on ’em know’d me by name, for he said 
* Beige, swate Beige,’ I think it won” 

There had been a rapid consultation among the boys. 

He’s had a vision of angels,” said Graycote to 
South. 

Then, for pity’s sake, don’t dissipate it,” whispered 
Jack, at the same time beckoning Gidlow to come 
ashore. 

Let’s all go a little way into the wood,” he urged, 
as Davison and Gidlow climbed the bank. 

Beige was a Methodist. At the next meeting of the 
‘‘ Class ” to which he belonged, his ‘‘ experiences ” 
were worth listening to. 

Now fully awake, Beige gazed around him. He 
was quite alone, he found, and not a sound came from 
the near wood. Looking about, he sighted the guitar 
case. 

“ Ah ! ” said the old Puritan, sighing heavily, 
‘‘ tru-ly the pipe and the taybor is in their feasts. No 
meddar escapes their riot. * Ow little sich lads know 
o’ the booty of Zion. It’s just as it was in the days 
o’ Noah — eatin’ and drinkin’, marryin’ and gi’ing in 
marriage and so forth.” 

Ah, Beige! Beige! when you know you over-ate 
yourself this morning, and drank at least a quart of 
ale! For Graycote was right when he said nothing 
had been forgotten. There was a fair supply of ale 
for Beige, as well as lots of lemonade for the boys. 

‘‘ ’Ow can the songs of Zion sound in the ears o’ 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


43 


the worldlin’ ? Beige asked himself as he reflected 
on his waking dream. “ Verily I heard the Lord’s 
song in a strange land. ... I wonder now when 
they’ll be back for dinner.” 

Beige was an unconscious humbug. He had not a 
suspicion of his own inconsistency. He had two or 
three tracts in his pocket, one of which he had deter- 
mined to bestow upon John Graycote. It was entitled, 

Have you got your ticket ? ” He had been thinking 
that Dr. South’s son needed something a little stronger. 
How he wished he had brought a copy of ‘‘ Hell-Fire 
Jack, or Plucked from the Burning.” He felt sorry 
now that he had allowed himself to be carried away 
by young South’s music. Perhaps he’d play that 
‘‘ fiddle thing ” again ; Beige would then seize the op- 
portunity for a word in season on the songs o’ Zion. 

Beige looked at his watch; it was a little after two 
o’clock. 

Time is on the wing,” he remarked sententiously, 
and yawning somewhat. This ’ere weather do make 
a workin’ man thirsty.” 

It was making some playing boys thirsty too, and 
they were returning, a merry party, from the wood. 

“ Beige! ” shouted Jack from the bank, ‘‘ hope you 
slept well ? Ready for some luncheon ? ” 

Well sir,” said the boatman, touching his hat, and 
smiling in spite of his fear of South’s eternal reproba- 
tion — Axing your pardon, I calls it dinner.” 

A meal by any other name will taste as sweet, 


44 


JACK SOUTH 


Beige,” returned Jack we’re going to take the things 
into the wood. Would you prefer to remain here?” 

Jack saw that Beige, the stout and sturdy, seemed 
loath to leave his cushions. 

‘‘ If it’s all the same to you gentlemen, I would,” 
said the boatman, who saw another nap in prospect, 
and (possibly) another vision. 

The four boys were hauling the hampers out of the 
boat. 

Leave him a chicken and some salad and a slice 
or two of ham and one of those veal pies,” said Gray- 
cote to Gidlow. 

'' Don’t forget the beer, John ” — put in South, “ he 
appreciates that. And, Davison, give him one of your 
cigars.” 

Davison, who was now in uncommonly good spirits, 
gave the boatman a couple of cigars and some fusees. 
Beige, quite overwhelmed with an abundance of good 
things, could only smile feebly, touch his hat repeat- 
edly and murmur thanks indiscriminately. 

No time was lost in spreading the meal on a mossy 
place in the wood. Johnny Gidlow was trying to prove 
himself handy on the occasion. His mother had given 
him two rules of conduct for the day, and he was 
observing them faithfully. One was, Don’t speak 
till you’re spoken to; ” the other, “ Don’t forget your 
manners.” Both rules or cautions were unnecessary 
as far as Johnny was concerned. 

“ Strawberry ! ” exclaimed South, letting off lemon- 


A WOOD AND WATER PARTY 


45 

ade corks like so many pistol shots. '' This is worth 
coming for. Gidlow, where are you ? ’’ 

Johnny, having placed everything in reach of the 
diners, had removed himself to a distance. He felt 
sure they would leave him enough to eat. Hearing 
South calling him, however, he ran as fast as he could, 
only to hear the Doctor’s son chide him in his serio- 
comic way. ‘‘Gidlow! this is meanness. Nay, it’s 
treachery. You know that we are all apoplectic, and 
you thought to leave us to perish miserably. Surely 
you remember what Nelson said: England expects 
every man — and of course every boy — to do his 
duty. He made no exception in favor of you.” 

South motioned him to a place by his own side, 
and Johnny sat down, smiling through his blushes. 

“ Heed not the vulgar joint of fat and lean,” said 
Jack, breaking into an unpremeditated strain of blank 
verse. “ There are who say, beneath yon flaky paste 
— lurk livers of the geese with dainties fed — until 
said livers bulge with unctious food — fit for the palate 
of a child of song. Such children are we both, and 
therefore, my young Apollo, we’ll just divide this pate 
between our musical selves. John! for this so dainty 
cate, great thanks. Methinks you catered with a 
wondrous skill; and, if I might trouble you for one 
of those bottomless (in-one-sense-only) bottles of by- 
no-means-exciting-but-altogether-refreshing and touch- 
the-spot nectar, I think we shall be able to galvanise 
Gidlow into life and song.” 


CHAPTER IV 


A GOLDEN AFTERNOON 

‘‘The woods were fill’d so full with song, 

There seem’d no room for sense of wrong.” 

— T ennyson. 

'' Surely you remember my weakness for tea ? 
Graycote was saying. 

‘‘ Well, John, provided that the weakness is for, and 
not in, the tea. Pm with you.’' 

At a convenient distance from the spot where they 
had lunched the boys were fixing a gipsy kettle over a 
lighted fire. The fishing was over, and Graycote had 
startled Jack by announcing, Five o’clock tea punc- 
tually at six.” 

It’s all part of the experiment, Jack. You remem- 
ber my saying this was to be an experimental party?” 

‘‘ Yes, John. Pray go on making experiments. I 
like them.” 

“ So glad,” ejaculated Graycote, coughing a little, 
as he inhaled the smoke of the burning wood in his 
efforts to see if the kettle had begun to boil. “ You 
see, ladies always appreciate tea so much, and I wanted 
to find out if it could be managed at this forthcoming 
water party.” 


46 


A GOLDEN AFTERNOON 


47 


“John, you’re graduating as a model host. You 
are surpassing yourself. But don’t put your spectacles 
into the steam more than is necessary. I’ll sing out 
when the kettle boils.” 

Davison and Gidlow were unpacking and arranging 
cups and saucers in the near distance. They had col- 
lected materials for the fire, and set it alight in an 
incredibly short time. 

“We must have music over our cups, as is fitting,” 
said Jack. 

“To be sure,” assented Graycote, “ full strength 
of the company, and all that.” 

“If you could remember that the wind, such as it 
is, is blowing from the south-east, and that conse- 
quently the smoke — ” 

“ Dear me, yes,” said Graycote, shifting his posi- 
tion. 

“ It’s important to know which way the wind is 
blowing,” said the philosophical Jack with significance. 
“ In your case it is of particular importance, or will 
be some day.” 

Graycote looked at Jack South enquiringly. Like 
the river yonder, the doctor’s son was always breaking 
out in a fresh place. 

“ Remove the boiling kettle of popular fury from 
the fire of discontent, and the result is — tea.” Jack 
was holding the kettle in his hand. “ Where’s the 
pot ? ” he enquired. 


48 


JACK SOUTH 


'' Jack, these are dark sayings,” said Graycote, hold- 
ing the teapot while his friend poured in the boiling 
water. “ Tm not sure that I quite follow you.” 

‘‘ Never mind, old man, you’ll have to do so some 
day. Let us to our cups.” 

When Jack had tasted his tea, he pronounced it 
excellent and said to his friend, “ Don’t forget, 
John, that the quality of the tea depends very 
largely upon the removal of the kettle at the right 
moment.” 

“Another dark saying. Jack.” 

“ Perhaps. Suppose we have a series of light say- 
ings to the music of the guitar. Gidlow, what will 
you sing ? ” 

But Johnny was looking as though he had lived 
on cherries to the exclusion of the milk. His repertoire 
of songs was limited to the few his mother had taught 
him. Of hymns and anthems his memory held a store 
inexhaustible. South began to strum over some pop- 
ular melodies on his guitar. Johnny knew the melo- 
dies, but had no notion of the words. 

“ Never mind,” said South, passing from one tune 
to another without a moment’s pause, “We shall hit it 
directly.” 

He fell back upon opera music, and as he strummed 
a pretty melody from the “ Caliph of Bagdad ” he 
noticed a sudden new flush in Gidlow’s face. “ Apollo ! 
haven’t I struck the lyre in the right place.” Johnny 


A GOLDEN AFTERNOON 


49 


shyly confessed that he had. South was wondering 
to what words the little country lad would sing this 
gem from the ‘‘ Caliph.” 

“ It’s called,” said Gidlow, in a trembling voice, '' O 
come ye into the Summer Woods.” 

“ What could be more appropriate ! ” exclaimed 
Graycote. 

The very thing,” rejoined South. “ Hearts, my 
friend. I’ll lead up to it forthwith.” 

It was a more than faltering voice that raised itself 
in the woodland to the praise of the surrounding 
beauty. A few seconds, however, and the notes were 
steady, strong and sweet: 

“ O come ye into the Summer Woods 
There entereth no alloy.” 

Charged with the fulness and ripeness of an Italian 
summer, the melody rang gloriously through the Eng- 
lish woodland. Once the spirit of the music seized 
him, the singer knew not what it was to falter. The 
tender accompaniment of the strings followed trip- 
pingly. 

''But what of the sleeping beauty?” asked Jack 
excitedly, when the song was over, and the singer had 
been applauded, literally, to the echo. 

" Meaning Beige ? ” asked Graycote. 

" Of course. What a shame to forget him, even if 
his appearance does suggest that he prefers the cups 
that inebriate.” 


50 


JACK SOUTH 


Perhaps Gidlow would take him a cup of tea/^ said 
Gray cote. Johnny was in attendance immediately. 

'' Send him the teapot/' suggested South, “ it may 
help to wake him up for the journey home." But when 
Johnny came to the river bank, he found Beige lying 
under the shadow of a great tree, sleeping, snoring 
and perspiring. The sunlight on the boat had become 
too strong for the dreamer of dreams. Lying near 
was an empty wicker bottle that, in the early morning, 
had contained one gallon of very good home-brewed. 
Johnny shrank from disturbing the unwieldy man, 
but left the teapot and a cup and saucer standing with- 
in his reach. 

After that the birds in Tishley Wood grew mute, 
for the place began to thrill with human song. Flute 
and guitar were constantly in demand, and each of the 
four boys contributed his share of vocal music. South 
and Gidlow (after many suggestions on the part of the 
former) hit upon a duet, which, as Graycote said, 

made the birds blush for their own discordance, and 
sent them to roost an hour before their usual time." 

But the home-coming was memorable. Beige was 
awake when the boys reached the waterside — awake, 
but stupid. 

South suggested, in an undertone, that the boatman 
had been trying to stable a nightmare. 

Perhaps the second vision was of demons," said 
Graycote, shaking the empty beer jar. But a very lit- 


A GOLDEN AFTERNOON 


51 

tie rowing served to push the boat down stream, for 
the wind was rising and the current strengthening. 

Johnny Gidlow lay back in the boat and thought of 
Paradise. It seemed to him that he had passed into 
it that day and that the memory of it would never 
leave him. He was not sad, even though the day was 
well nigh over. How much he would have to tell his 
mother! And then a pleasant thought was haunting 
him, a thought to which he scarcely liked to give shape, 
but which was taking a deeper and deeper hold upon 
his mind. It was the thought of South. Johnny was 
sure the doctor’s son must be one of the cleverest and 
nicest boys in the whole world. Yet this young gen- 
tleman had not only been kind to him, but had noticed 
him continually during the day and, more than once, 
had praised him warmly. It occurred to him that if 
ever he fell into any great trouble, he would run to 
Mr. South and say, “ Please Sir, I’m very sad because 
this or that has happened, and I’ve come to you, be- 
cause I couldn’t help feeling that you’d do something 
for me.” 

The motion of the boat was soothing and pleasant, 
and the long sunlight lay in a fiery flood upon the sur- 
face of the water. Bird melody seemed to have broken 
out afresh as they sailed past dreamy meadows and 
quiet corn-fields scarcely touched with the lovely gold 
that tells of autumn ripeness. Only Beige was de- 
pressed. Davison had for some time been sharing in 


52 


JACK SOUTH 


the general conversation. But Gidlow lay and listened, 
and was happy. They were yet a good half-mile from 
home, when South suddenly stopped the stream of fun 
to say to Graycote : — 

‘‘John, shall we sing an evening hymn? We have 
had such a good time, it seems — I mean, I think we 
ought, you know, to — how shall I put it? Well, per- 
haps, to ‘ say grace 

Graycote assented immediately. 

“ What a puzzle Jack is,” he thought to himself, “ I 
should never have thought of such a thing. It must 
be that home-training of his.” 

Without saying another word. Jack had removed his 
hat, taken up his guitar and played the opening bars 
of the hymn — 

“God who madest earth and heaven 
Darkness and light — ” 

Graycote and the other boys uncovered reverently 
as the sacred song rose upon the air of the quiet river. 

Guard us waking, guard us sleeping, 

And when we die, 

May we in thy mighty keeping 
All peaceful lie: 

When the last dread call shall wake us 
Do not thou our God forsake us, 

But to reign in glory take us 
With Thee on high. 


CHAPTER V 


THE FRIGID ZONE 

How still the evening is, 

As hushed on purpose to grace harmony. 

It had been in the bond that Jack should dine and 
spend the evening at the Hall. He had left instruc- 
tions for his black-and-whites,’’ as he called them, 
to be sent up to the Graycote’s, so that he could dress 
there after the water-party and appear in the great 
dining-room with decorum and punctuality. 

Although Jack was wont to speak of the Hall and 
its environments as the Frigid Zone, he was good 
enough to admit that it had graces peculiar to itself. 
He loved to dine there on a summer evening. 

On this particular night, as the small party of 
Lord and Lady Graycote, Mr. Burton, John Graycote 
and Jack himself, crossed the great entrance hall with 
its polished marble floor and lofty columns and en- 
tered the dining-room, South confessed to himself 
that the scene was a pleasant one. 

On a desert of polished oak, glowing here and there 
with a warm gleam of carpet and rug, stood a table 
that, in the soft candle-light, might have been mistaken 
for a snow-drift covered with flowers, or a little island 
53 


54 


JACK SOUTH 


of fair light and color standing amid the gloom of 
a perfumed lake. For the sides of the room lay in 
shadow, a shadow only broken by the four tall candles 
on the sideboard ; so massive a structure that, with the 
old painting of St. Sebastian hanging above, it might 
well have been mistaken for an altar. The three tall 
windows at the end of the long room faced the west, 
and there a crimson after-glow burned brightly, 
promising an undying gleam of daylight to the brief 
darkness of summer. Only the lawn in the near dis- 
tance lay in sombre gloom. 

The sense of perfect repose and subdued beauty was 
delicious, following upon the bright lights of an 
August day and the glare of summer sunshine on 
field and river. Nor did Jack regret the necessity for 
controlling his over-boisterous merriment and the 
task of listening rather than of conversing. 

Only, Lady Graycote could not allow him to do all 
the listening. He was a greater favorite of hers 
than he wotted of — a remarkable fact, seeing that 
her ladyship was difficult to please and made heavy 
demands (too heavy for some) upon the patience of 
her visitors. 

Jack {lad scarcely ever taken the trouble to ask 
himself whether he liked Lady Graycote; all that he 
had ever thought of in her regard was that she was 
a woman — old enough to be his mother — and 
therefore demanding great respect and reverence and 
being worthy of all the small attentions lie could pay 


THE FRIGID ZONE 


55 


her. This was Jack’s theory and practice in reference 
to all women, irrespective of rank or age. A theory 
and practice inherited from his father, and one im- 
possible to improve upon. 

Lady Graycote was not a beautiful woman, and 
she rendered herself ghastly in facial appearance by 
the use of a single eye-glass. Jack thought it suited 
her very well, particularly when she was driving; but 
he admitted that its use heightened the death’s-head 
appearance of her ladyship, and, on the whole, ren- 
dered her remarkable but not attractive. 

To-night Lady Graycote is impressing up>on every- 
body the extreme absurdity of supposing that she 
could venture to indulge in anything of the nature 
of a picnic on land or water. Of course the big 
water-party must come off, and she would exert her- 
self to make it a complete success; but to expect her 
to eat and drink in an atmosphere of flying and creep- 
ing things was, etc., etc. 

Oh,” put in Lord Graycote, there are places in 
Tishley Wood where the midgets swarm not, and ants 
do not exist. 

A sufficient supply of carpets and cushions,” sug- 
gested the Rector, will transform even Tishley 
Wood into a pleasant retreat.” 

Lady Graycote shivered' slightly : “ One would 

feel so uncomfortably like Queen Elizabeth,” she said. 

“ But then she was dying, not dining on cush- 
ions, mother,” interposed John. 


56 


JACK SOUTH 


It occurred to South how very like some portraits 
of Queen Elizabeth was Lady Gray cote. He won- 
dered the coincidence had not struck him before. He 
tried, however, not to dwell upon the thought as he 
turned to her ladyship and said : 

‘‘ Why not have a little tent put up, Lady Gray- 
cote? A big one, of course, if you preferred it. 
Then the midgets would not have a chance.’’ Lady 
Graycote was charmed. 

But, my dear,” exclaimed his lordship, who saw 
in the suggestion both trouble and expense, “ why 
go to Tishley Wood to lunch in a tent? We might 
as well run up a marquee on the lawn.” 

Why lunch in the wood at all ? ” asked the heir. 
‘‘ Why not have an awning fixed up over the barge, 
or lay a table on the covered part and eat there ? Bet- 
ter still, of course, buy or hire a house-boat.” 

John had fixed his mind upon a house-boat; but his 
father did nothing without counting the cost. The 
Rev. Mark Burton, who had endeared himself to 
Lord Graycote by holding ‘‘ moderate views ” on sub- 
jects outside theology, asked the boy if he had any 
notion as to the cost of a house-boat. 

“ Well,” said the youngster, ‘‘ it’s not as if you had 
to buy a new one every season.” 

‘‘ That’s true of all kinds of expensive things,” said 
the parson. 

Lady Graycote who, by the way, had never really 
had the smallest intention of trusting herself to any 


THE FRIGID ZONE 


57 


kind of a boat, or suffering herself to lunch anywhere 
out of doors, begged her husband to make his own ar- 
rangements. Any plan would suit her, she declared. 

Jack rushed into the threatened breach by ex- 
patiating on the delights of lunching on the cool river 
— well protected from the sun, and catching the 
delicious breeze at every moment.” 

Lady Graycote was amused. Putting up her glass 
to look at Jack, she smiled graciously upon him, at 
the same time remarking — “So like a boy!” (It 
seemed to the lively mind of Jack as though she were 
trying to find out if he had not become a man since 
the removal of the soup. ) “ So very like a good boy.” 

(Jack devoutly hoped he was, but didn’t say so.) 
“ Not fearing neuralgia, nor regarding draughts ” 
— her ladyship continued — “ nor reflecting that what 
is to him and to his kind merely an agreeable cool- 
ness, might in my case prove to be the harbinger of 
terrible suffering.” 

Lady Graycote dropped her eye-glass, and, as it 
chanced to touch a pendant jewel in its fall — thereby 
producing a sound akin to the sudden bursting of a 
glass vessel — Jack felt penitent. For the moment it 
seemed to him as if he had deliberately struck Lady 
Graycote. 

In another moment, however. Jack had recovered. 
Swallowing a mouthful of claret and water, he re- 
flected that, if her ladyship had happened to be a boy, 
he would have recommended a glass case. 


S8 


JACK SOUTH 


'' ril undertake to prevent all the draughts, Lady 
Graycote,” he said with decision. 

Then my mother will faint,” said young Gray- 
cote. But the Rector created a diversion by putting 
an entomological question to his pupil, and Jack re- 
sumed his conversation with Lady Graycote, manag- 
ing, however, to change the subject. 

Had her ladyship cared for the pictures of that 
year ? ” he asked. 

We saw so little of the Season,” Lady Graycote 
answered. Jack knew very well that the Graycotes 
never remained in London for more than a week or 
two, and that their town house had been let on a 
long lease. 

I find picture galleries more trying every year I 
live,” her ladyship went on pathetically. One hour 
at the Grosvenor, and I am prostrate.” 

‘‘ Your ladyship heard some music, I am sure,” 
asked Jack when he had duly condoled with his host- 
ess’s infirmities. If there was one thing Lady Gray- 
cote would sacrifice herself for, that thing was music. 

“ We heard Pergolini three times,” she said with 
something approaching enthusiasm. “ You know 
my weakness for the violin. The man’s playing is 
ravishing! Happily, too, each time we heard him in 
a drawing-room. You don’t know how I shrink from 
going to concert-rooms and public halls.” 

Lord Graycote at the other end of the table was 
wondering what gave a fearfully overcrowded draw- 


THE FRIGID ZONE 


59 

ing-room the advantage over a comparatively cool and 
spacious hall. 

He only laughed, however, as he asked : 

“ Was Pergolini the man who insulted! Lord 
Edward? 

‘‘ To be sure he was,” rejoined her ladyship, and 
then, turning to Jack full of the eagerness with which 
a good story inspires a person of limited (and some- 
times unlimited) conversational powers, she said: 

“ A most ill-bred person, this violinist, who con- 
ducted himself in a perfectly shocking manner in the 
Duchess of Darnley’s drawing-room.” Jack looked 
at her ladyship with something like alarm. Had the 
great Italian appeared in the Darnley circle drunk and 
disorderly ? 

‘‘ You will remember meeting Lord Edward Pan- 
kin?” Lady Graycote said; “he was down here last 
September.” 

Jack had not forgotten him, he answered, trying to 
catch young Graycote’s eye. 

Hadn’t Lord Edward offered to bet them two to 
one in ponies that he would stand on his head in the 
middle of the billiard table and sing a song of his 
own composing — “ Ripping through the row on a 
wall-eyed tit.” 

“ Difficult not to remember a young man of so many 
accomplishments,” Jack thought to himself. 

“ Well,” said Lady Graycote, “ you know how pas- 
sionately fond of music Lord Edward is ? ” / 


6o 


JACK SOUTH 


Jack bowed. He was wondering if perchance 
Pergolini had declined to accompany Lord Edward in 

Ripping through the row.” 

It was at one of the Duchess’s very biggest 
parties,” her ladyship went on, when Pergolini — 
who I must say was playing divinely at the moment 
— turned suddenly round to Lord Edward, who may 
perhaps have struck a bass note on the piano just be- 
fore — turned round upon the Duchess’s own son 
and shrieked, literally shrieked ! — ‘ Be quiet, you 
fool . . . ! ”’ 

Lady Graycote sank back in her chair, put up her 
glass and looked at Jack, as who should say — 
‘‘ When have you heard anything quite so horrible as 
that?” 

Jack deliberately dropped his napkin, making a dive 
for it at the same moment. John was blushing 
furiously. Lord Graycote and the Rector were dis- 
cussing the new foreign policy. 

‘‘ Did Lord Edward apologise ? ” asked Jack after 
a slight pause. 

The dropping of the eye-glass made such a clatter. 
Jack felt sure that it must be broken. 

‘‘ My dear child ! ” exclaimed her ladyship ; ‘‘ either 
I have told the story wrongly, or you have misunder- 
stood me.” 

Jack has over-exerted himself to-day, mother,” 
young Graycote said hastily, at the same time casting 
an appealing look at South. Don’t worry him now, 


THE FRIGID ZONE 


6i 


or he won’t be able to play Chopin for you later on. 
Oh, and he’s got his guitar with him and a new bal- 
lade, to say nothing of an improvised serenade, and 
I don’t know what.” 

Lady Graycote looked at her watch and rose im- 
mediately. I must repeat my story some other time 
— sleepy boy ! ” she added, touching his shoulder 
with her fan as she passed him. Why didn’t you 
tell me it was getting late ? ” she asked Mr. Burton 
as they all left the dining-room together. 

As the two boys crossed the hall. Jack whispered 
to his friend: 

If I’d been Pergolini, I should have punched Lord 
Edward’s head.” 

‘‘ I should have tried,” rejoined Graycote. 

There were no traces of sleepiness about Jack, as 
he sat down to the big Broadwood and ran his fingers 
lightly over the keys. 

Frightfully out of tune as usual,” he thought to 
himself ; ‘‘ I wish people wouldn’t economise in such 
matters as these.” 

Lady Graycote had taken a low seat by the fire, for 
in spite of the hot weather her ladyship insisted upon 
a fire in the drawing-room. In spite of the fire, too, 
she wrapped a light woollen shawl about her shoul- 
ders and took on her lap a big Persian cat that had 
been lying on the hearth-rug. 

Music did not exactly bore Lord Graycote, but it 

cannot be said that he was an enthusiast in the art. It 
5 


62 


JACK SOUTH 


was, on the other hand, the one thing Lady Graycote 
cared for very much. As for Mr. Burton, he was 
known throughout the diocese as “ the musical Rec- 
tor of Graycote.” As a curate he had done wonders 
in choir-training, and now the choir of Graycote 
Church had become famous. 

Jack South was thinking of this, as he sat at the 
piano playing Lady Graycote’s favorite nocturnes. 
He was thinking of other things, too, in connection 
with the Rector’s choir. He had said to John that 
they must put their heads together about Gidlow; 
but talking matters over with his father afterwards. 
Jack had become acquainted with one or two startling 
facts which he was determined to discuss with the 
Rector. Jack had decided not to speak of these things 
to young Graycote until he saw how the information 
affected Mr. Burton. Dr. South had his own reasons 
for not wishing to talk to the Rector on a matter of 
this sort. 

When, then, the last song had been sung, and the 
last bar of Chopin played in the Graycote drawing- 
room, Mr. Burton and Jack South left the room to- 
gether. 

‘‘ I suppose,” said Jack, after a little conversation 
about choir music, ‘‘ I suppose you are very proud 
of your soloist, Gidlow.” 

‘‘ Oh,” said the parson a little coldly, ‘‘ a boy ought 
to be thankful for the privilege of being allowed to 
sing in a church choir.” 


THE FRIGID ZONE 63 

“ Certainly, sir,” returned Jack with great respect, 
“ in one sense that’s very true.” 

‘‘ In every sense, surely ! ” said the Rector a little 
sharply. 

Well, sir, however that may be, Fm afraid you 
will be losing him soon.” 

‘‘ What do you mean? ” 

Jack felt that he was rousing the good man 
“ Mitchell’s agent was in the Church on Sunday 
evening,” Jack said, speaking very deliberately, and 
I’m told he was delighted with Gidlow.” 

‘‘ Who is Mitchell ? ” demanded the Rector. 

Oh, he’s the man who gets boys for the London 
theatres and opera houses. They are paying very 
high prices just now at the Odeon — salaries that a 
country boy would jump at. Then there’s that new 
Roman Catholic place in London. Mitchell is work- 
ing for them also, and they give — ” 

‘‘ But Gidlow is not a Roman Catholic ! ” gasped 
the Parson. 

That’s true, but — ” 

They had arrived at the Rectory, and Jack having 
shaken hands with the speechless Parson, ran off be- 
fore the latter could question him further, leaving the 
bewildered man staring at his own gate. 


CHAPTER VI 


DR. SOUTH 

How the world is made for each of us! 

How all we perceive and know in it 
Tends to some moments product thus, 

When a soul declares itself — to wit, 

By its fruit, the thing it does. 

— Browning. 

If any one family in Graycote received its full meed 
of fresh air and sunshine, that family was Dr. South's. 

From an early hour in the morning until long after 
sunset, the doctor’s garden, shrubbery, lawn and or- 
chard rang with happy talk and merry laughter. We 
are not, of course, prepared to say that no mopish or 
melancholy person ever entered there; but we do as- 
sert that if there was one place in the wide world where 
poor Prince Arthur’s ‘‘ young gentleman ” — or ladies 
either — were never sad for very wantonness,” that 
place was presided over by Dr. and Mrs. South and 
was called Graycote Grange. 

Nearly four hundred years ago, a veritable monastic 
grange stood upon the spot over which Dr. South is 
strolling at this very moment. Not a vestige of the 
old building remains with the exception of this bit of 
stone wall which is doing duty as a support to the 
orchard gates. 

Dr. South, stopping to admire the effect of the 
64 


DR. SOUTH 


65 

morning sunlight on the red campion and ivy clinging 
to this atom of stonework, is conscious of a light step 
behind him, and knows by a sure instinct that Jack is 
flying down the garden which separates the lawn from 
the orchard. » 

The Doctor turns round with a look sunnier than 
the morning itself, if that be possible, and catches 
Jack on the wing — so to say. The boy submits like 
a four-year-old to having his short curls pulled by 
his father and exclaims — 

“Yes, dad, I am late ; but you don^t know how tired 
I was.” 

The Souths kept early hours in the summer months, 
but at mid-winter, and especially during the month 
or six weeks after Christmas, they were not so care- 
ful in this matter. 

“ We had such a short chat last night,” said the 
Doctor, laying his hand on Jack’s shoulder and pass- 
ing into the orchard — “ that I was a little anxious 
to ask you more about the Rector. Did he seem dis- 
turbed, Jack?” 

“ Frightfully, dad. Shouldn’t wonder if he’s still 
standing before his gate.” 

“ I shall go to him directly after breakfast,” said 
the Doctor, his bright looks vanishing for a moment. 
“We mustn’t forget who he is Jack, must we? Re- 
member, old fellow, he gave us Holy Communion on 
Sunday.” 

The Doctor’s arm tightened affectionately on the 


66 


JACK SOUTH 


lad as he said this, and there came a look of serious- 
ness over Jack’s face. 

‘‘ A priest is always a priest,” the Doctor went on, 
“ but Mr. Burton is not always Mr. Burton. Still 
Jack, I am glad you spoke to him last night and that 
you said to him what you did say.” 

Have you made up your mind what to advise Mrs. 
Gidlow? ” Jack asked after a short pause. 

‘‘ Not quite, dear. I should be sorry for the lad 
to leave Graycote, unless the Ancinian Fathers got 
hold of him. I could not in conscience regret that. 
But Fm afraid he’s just a bit too old for their pur- 
pose.” 

He’s only thirteen and a-half you know, dad. At 
any rate, I know he isn’t fourteen.” 

‘Hs that so?” asked the Doctor. “Why he looks 
more than a year older than that. I forgot to ask 
Mrs. Gidlow his exact age. In that case — ” but he 
hesitated. 

“ There’s two good years of singing in him. I’m 
sure,” said Jack. “ And don’t you think his after 
chances are good ? ” 

“ Exceptionally so. One may be wrong of course ; 
but if a voice of that exceptional quality doesn’t de- 
velop into a superior tenor, I shall be much deceived.” 

“ What seemed to touch the Rector most,” ex- 
claimed Jack, laughing at the recollection, “ was the 
possibility of Gidlow becoming a Roman Catholic.” 


^ DR. SOUTH 


67 


I can well believe that/' the Doctor replied, 
shaking his head. ‘‘If Mr. Burton had only been a 
good Anglican Catholic, bringing up his choir-boys 
in the practice of every Catholic duty, I should not 
have said what I did say a moment ago. But our un- 
fortunate Rector seems to be getting more ‘ moderate/ 
as he calls it, every year of his life. Under the cir- 
cumstances, I would dissuade no one in this parish 
from submitting to the Roman obedience.” 

Jack looked up sharply at his father; he had never 
heard him admit so much before. He knew that the 
Doctor was what is called a “ very advanced Ritu- 
alist,” and he remembered that somebody had once re- 
marked upon his father’s “ Roman sympathies,” but 
Jack was surprised at the change that seemed to have 
taken place in his dad’s mind since the Christmas 
holidays. 

“ But let us go to prayers. Jack,” said the Doctor, 
turning on his heel as a bell rang out over the 
lawn and garden and orchard. “We never do any- 
thing more profitable in this world.” 

The family met every morning in a room fitted up 
as an Oratory. Directly after prayers, they assembled 
at the breakfast table. 

“ What can have brought the Rector out so early? ” 
asked Mrs. South as a servant announced “ Mr. Bur- 
ton to see Dr. South.” 

Jack caught his father’s eye for a second, but said 


68 


JACK SOUTH 


nothing. Just for the present he and his dad held a 
secret; which secret, however, had been shared with 
Mrs. South. 

“ ril go to him at once, dear, if you’ll allow me,” 
said the Doctor to his wife, looking half amused and 
half anxious. 

Certainly, dear. Jane, where did you leave Mr. 
Burton? ” 

'‘In the little drawing-room, ma’am,” said Jane; 
" Emma was dusting the big drawing-room,” she 
added. 

A significant smile passed between the Doctor and 
his wife. Even Jack would not have understood this 
— if he had chanced to note it. 

The Doctor vanished, and the eight or nine remain- 
ing people (nine to be accurate), broke into merry 
comments upon this early pastoral visit. Jack was sit- 
ting by his mother. His eldest sister Minnie took her 
father’s place for the moment. 

" Is it wine for Mary Large or quinine for Edward 
Shaw, I wonder ? ” asked Kitty South, commonly 
called Kit, and who in earlier years had often been 
mistaken for Jack. Kit was a year younger than her 
brother, but the likeness between the two was re- 
markable. 

Jack was describing the water party to his mother. 

" I hope it’s not a sudden accident,” exclaimed 
Matilda, generally called Matty and not unfrequently 
Mat. Matty was a sympathetic girl, two years older 


DR. SOUTH 69 

than Jack and much resembling her eldest sister 
Minnie. 

I think, dears, this is the day for the Ruri-decanal 
Conference,” suggested Miss Burgon, the governess. 
‘‘ Is it not the first Wednesday in the month? ” 

‘‘ Miss Burgon, you are always well up in clerical 
arrangement — when is the parish school-feast com- 
ing off? ” asked Minnie. 

“ By which she means the bun-fight,” explained 
Kit, looking at Jack for approval of the phrase and 
avoiding Miss Burgon’s glance of disapproval. 

‘‘It is invariably on or about — on or about,” re- 
peated the governess trying to make it clear that she 
was not speaking rashly of a thing that depended 
largely upon the state of the weather — “ on or about 
the second week in September.” 

“ Isn’t that a little late in the year ? ” questioned 
Miss Flynd, the lady visitor who had remarked on 
“the dear little boy,” etc., etc., and who (with her 
sister Bertha and their father and mother) was spend- 
ing some time at Graycote Grange. 

“ Our school treat is always in May or June at the 
latest,” said Bertha Flynd. 

Minnie, sitting at the head of the table, began to 
explain in her own bright way the various complica- 
tions and circumstances which had gradually tended 
to push the school treat later and later in the year. 

“ Please correct me. Miss Burgon, if I have made 
any mistakes,” Minnie said, looking laughingly but 


70 


JACK SOUTH 


affectionately at the middle-aged governess, who was 
a well appreciated institution at the Grange. 

Miss Burgon immediately began to offer some 
trifling emendations of the narrative as originally 
given by Minnie; which emendations were interrupted 
by the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Flynd. 

A ripple of laughter greeted the elderly couple — 
painfully conscious that they had surprised their host- 
ess as well as their own daughters. 

It's my fault, dear Mrs. South ! ” exclaimed the 
lady in a voice surprisingly clear and strong con- 
sidering her apparent age. 

But surely, my dear,” said Mrs. South rising, 
Ann did not forget you? ” 

We sent her away three-quarters of an hour ago,” 
said the old gentleman, proud of the feat of appear- 
ing at a nine o'clock family breakfast. I shall in- 
sist upon Mrs. Flynd doing this every morning. No 
more bed-room breakfast parties, Mrs. Flynd ! '' he 
said to his wife as they took seats on either side of 
the table, ‘‘If only I could get the Doctor on my 
side ! But Oh,” he went on, a laughing eye contradict- 
ing his pathetic look, “ what a thing it is to fall into 
the clutches of Mrs. South ! ” 

Then the combined strength of the South (and the 
Flynd) family fell upon Mr. Flynd with a torrent of 
questions, expostulations and prognostications, and as 
he listened the old man seemed to grow younger by 
forty years. 


DR. SOUTH 


71 


Dr. South, sitting opposite to the Rev. Mark Burton 
in the little drawing-room, detected a faint echo of 
the merry hubbub in the breakfast room and longed 
to return. But the Rector made no sign of going 
away. Miss Burgon had been right about the Ruri- 
decanal Conference ; but not even an Archidiaconal one. 
could have moved Mr. Burton at that moment. 

He was deeply, painfully hurt, he had just said. 
He looked deeply and painfully angry. 

What I cannot understand is why Mrs. Gidlow 
should have come to you. Dr. South, in a matter af- 
fecting my interest so closely.^’ 

The moment he had uttered the words, the Rector 
felt that he had exposed his hand. This did not tend 
to make him more comfortable. 

Dr. South made no reply. He looked like a man 
who had already said his say and had nothing either 
to subtract from, or add to it. But he was astonished 
that Mr. Burton should admit in so many plain words 
what (implicitly at least) he had so often denied. 

I cannot understand the extraordinary interest you 
have in this case,” the Rector said petulantly. 

Dr. South thought the number of things his visitor 
'' didn’t understand ” might be multiplied almost in- 
definitely. What the Doctor said was as follows : 

My religion teaches me to love humanity. I 
might say that it also teaches me to love Art. Any 
system of religion that teaches the utter neglect of 
either one or the other, my conscience rejects. If 


72 


JACK SOUTH 


you, as a clergyman of the Church of England, assure 
me that that Church regards neither the love and 
sacredness of the human species, nor the love and 
sacredness of Art — then I reject her. Do I make 
myself clear, Mr. Burton ? ’’ 

Dr. South, whose gentle humor had made pale 
ladies of fashion smile in spite of ailments, real and 
imaginary — whose kindly sympathy with the suffer- 
ing poor had made rigid features relax and poor pulse- 
less hearts beat with the accession of new hope — 
whose tender handling of sick children and the win- 
some whimsicality of his tone and manner had made 
him a longed for visitor instead of a dreaded doctor 
— this Dr. South, it seemed, like his son Jack, could 
break out in fresh places when the occasion made it 
necessary. No person in Graycote had such profound 
respect for the sacerdotal character as the Doctor had. 
No parishioner of the Rev. Mark Burton had ever de- 
fended the questionable sayings and doings of his 
parish priest as Dr. South had defended them — at 
home and abroad. At the same time, nobody had 
more clearly defined views of the practices of justice 
and charity than the man who at this moment was 
confronting the Rector of Graycote. 

“The fascination of the Scarlet Lady,'' began Mr. 
Burton — the Doctor had risen from his chair. 

“ The Archbishop of Canterbury himself should 
not use such an expression in my house without listen- 


DR. SOUTH 


73 

ing to my protest.” The Doctor had spoken with 
warmth. 

Mr. Burton also rose, and as he did so his eye 
caught a picture, the sight of which had startled him 
as he was being shown into the little drawing-room 
half-an-hour ago. 

The picture was a new one. Its subject was the 
Virgin Mother of God. Below it on a small table of 
white marble and gilded wood, stood a bowl of white 
roses, flanked with choice lilies in tall Venetian glasses. 

‘‘ I am beginning to understand everything,” said 
the parson bitterly. A less courteous person than Dr. 
South would have expressed his pleasure at this as- 
surance. 

At this moment,” the Doctor said with firmness, 
‘‘ I am as much a layman of the Anglican Church as 
you are a priest of that Communion.” 

The Rector waited for more, but the Doctor was 
silent. 

‘‘ That being so,” the former broke out at length, 
how you can coolly acquiesce in an arrangement 
which means nothing less than the handing over of 
a young lad to a system that you are bound to regard 
as the Devil’s masterpiece for the destruction of souls, 
is — is — well, is something I cannot understand.” 

Oblivious of his claim to a general comprehension 
of the whole business, and proud of a bit of rhetoric 
that had done its duty on many a Protestant platform, 
the Rev. gentleman sat down, as though expecting 


74 JACK SOUTH 

the burst of applause to which he felt himself entitled. 

Alas ! the reporter has to record “ ironical laugh- 
ter/’ instead of loud and continued cheers.” 

The Doctor was himself again. Watch in hand, 
and shaking with suppressed mirth, he turned to the 
parson, and said — I never thought to hear that 
phrase again; least of all from you, Mr. Burton. 
Forgive me if I ask to be excused. Old Shaw was a 
little worse last night, and there are three or four 
others waiting in the surgery.” 

This has been a most unsatisfactory interview,” 
exclaimed the Rector, taking up his hat almost sav- 
agely, I will see Mrs. Gidlow at once, and the lad 
also. This affair must not proceed, Dr. South.” 

Johnny is quite ignorant of the whole matter,” 
was all the Doctor said in reply. He thought the 
parson looked a trifle relieved. 

‘‘ So much the better. There is one difficulty the 
less. Not, of course, that he would venture to ques- 
tion my right over him.” 

Your right ! ” the Doctor ejaculated, still holding 
the watch in his hand, while his eyes and mouth 
gave signs of coming mirth (if the parson would go 
on saying funny things) and present humorous sur- 
prise. Pardon me, my dear Rector, if you ever had 
a right in him, which I am disposed to question, it 
ceased when Johnny began to earn his own living. 
No doubt the abolition of serfdom is not so thorough 
as it ought to be, but — ” 


DR. SOUTH 


75 

But there came a sharp knock at the little drawing- 
room door. 

Please sir,” said the parlor-maid, they have 
sent to say that Edward Shaw is dying.” 

The Doctor did not even wait to show Mr. Burton 
out. 


CHAPTER VII 


JOHNNY GIDLOW 

Nor call thy spirit barely adequate 
To help on life in straight ways, broad enough 
For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest. 

— Browning, 

In justice to Mrs. Gidlow, it ought to be explained 
that the poor hard-working woman had no active dis- 
like of her parish priest. She knew so little of him 
and saw so little of him (out of stall and pulpit) 
that her feelings towards him could only be of a 
negative or passive sort. He had called upon her 
twice within the last year — once to complain that 
Johnnie had been late for a choir practice, and on the 
second occasion to suggest that the boy’s hair wanted 
cutting. The latter complaint had not seemed un- 
reasonable, though the ground of it was absurdly 
small and easily explained. The suggestion had been 
listened to respectfully, immediately acted upon and 
secretly resented. She strictly forbade the barber to 
give her son the ‘‘close crop,” Mr. Burton had hinted 
at. 

But when a well-dressed person, describing himself 
as “ Mitchell’s agent,” called (on the Monday morn- 
ing of the present week) at her little cottage, and as- 
sured her of the probability of her child’s success in 
76 


JOHNNY GIDLOW, 


77 


gaining any one of the various engagements and ap- 
pointments he described in detail, the good woman 
knew not how to answer him. She needed advice 
sorely and, acting on her first impulse, had explained 
the entire matter to Dr. South. 

The Rev. Mark Burton, hurrying away from the 
Grange to call upon Mrs. Gidlow, began to prepare 
his rhetorical attack. Conscious of being in a 'par- 
ticularly angry mood and desiring to curb his anger 
quite as much from conscientious motives as from the 
wish not to damage his own cause, the parson de- 
termined to begin by appealing to Mrs. Gidlow's feel- 
ings as a Protestant mother. It was true that he had 
over and over again objected to the application of 
the word Protestant to his branch of the Church 
Catholic; he forgot that objection in his eagerness to 
prevent the destruction of a soul and the loss of the 
only really good voice in his well-trained choir. 

When, however, the parson reached the Gidlow’s 
cottage, he found to his intense annoyance that 
Johnny’s mother was not at home,” and this in a 
much more real sense than could be said of some of 
his lady parishioners when he made his appearance 
in their entrance halls. Inquiries among the neigh- 
bors proved to him that Mrs. Gidlow had left the 
house betimes in the morning, before some of them 
were up and about.” 

The Rev. Mark Burton would almost have quar- 


6 


78 


JACK SOUTH 

relied with Lord Graycote at that moment — genial 
and attractive and full of tact as the Rector was 
within the precincts of Graycote Hall. 

His conscience was quite at ease in the matter of 
that dying man. Edward Shaw was a Methodist, and 
though Mr. Burton regarded every man, woman and 
child in Graycote as his parishioner, he could easily 
absolve himself from pastoral duties where his minis- 
trations were not acceptable. But the Ruri-decanal 
Conference? He had particularly desired to be pres- 
ent at that. The village clock was striking ten, and 
he had six miles to drive ! Should he drop the Con- 
ference? he asked himself. Would it be worth while 
to ask Lord Graycote to interfere in the matter of 
Gidlow? A brief, a very brief reflection convinced 
him that it would not. On the other hand, he saw 
that the mere relation of such a case, if it did not 
make his lordship angry, would bore him exceedingly. 
So the Rector of Graycote went to the Conference. 
But though the drive to Cowpool gave him time for 
quiet thought, and the meeting of the Rural Deanery 
tended to distract his mind, the day did not prove a 
happy one. 

The old Vicar of Cowpool — the clergyman who 
had spoken to Johnny in the choir-vestry a year or 
two before — was an advanced Ritualist. Mr. Bur- 
ton knew that the old man had acquired a reputation 
as confessor and director of souls, and that more than 
one of the Graycote laity found their way to Father ” 


JOHNNY GIDLOW 


79 


Hunton’s vicarage for the practice of that auricular 
confession which the Graycote rector, high-churchman 
though he called himself, disliked and denounced. 
Now Dr. and Mrs. South, at least, were among Father 
Hunton’s penitents. Mr. Burton knew that on the 
authority of Dr. South himself. Under such circum- 
stances, the Parson of Graycote was not disposed to 
make a confidant of the Vicar of Cowpool, though 
they were neighbors at the luncheon that followed 
immediately upon the Conference. And to speak to 
his other neighbor of what he so much wanted to 
■ discuss with somebody was altogether out of the ques- 
tion. Mr. Burton was sitting next to his host on the 
left hand side of the table ; the clergyman to Mr. Bur- 
ton’s left was president of the local branch of the 
Church Association and had quite recently denounced 
the services at Graycote Church as “ operatic perform- 
ances ” and the Rector of Graycote as a “ dissembling 
Romaniser.” 

‘‘ Father ” Hunton was not the very old man he 
seemed to be. He had been Vicar of Cowpool for 
more than thirty years, and though his parish was the 
smallest in the rural deanery, consisting only of 
some two hundred and fifty souls, his labors had been 
heavy and his life ascetic. His reputation for spir- 
ituality was well deserved. His enemies, and they 
were not few, admitted that Mr. Hunton, at one time 
the hope of every high-churchman in the diocese, had 
lived to see himself distrusted by many of his brother 


8o 


JACK SOUTH 


clergymen who professed to be working in the in- 
terest of the ‘‘ Catholic Revival/’ Some spoke of 
him as a stick-in-the-mud Tractarian; others as a man 
too dangerously Roman to be safe.” Nevertheless, 
Mr. Hunton had a great following, wrote more letters 
on spiritual subjects than many a so-called ‘‘ Leader 
of the Movement,” heard more confessions than his 
neighbor made sick calls, conducted a greater work 
for souls than the parsons sitting round his table at 
this moment had any idea of. But this was not all. 

Mr. Burton was thinking, as he sat in the semi- 
monastic dining-room of Cowpool Vicarage — think- 
ing a little uneasily of a certain institution founded by 
his host years before, an institution in which Dr. 
South took the keenest interest and one which owed 
its great success largely to the efforts and personal 
liberality of the Vicar and the Doctor. The Cowpool 
Choir-School was a beautiful reality, and under some 
circumstances no one would have appreciated its ex- 
istence more than the Rector of Graycote. But when 
Johnny Gidlow had been a little boy of nine. Dr. 
South proposing to Mr. Burton that the child should 
be sent to this very desirable and very suitable place, 
had unwittingly moved his parish priest to such bitter 
remonstrances on the subject that the Doctor had 
given way, and the matter had never come to the ears 
of any member of the Gidlow family. In his gener- 
osity the Doctor had excused Mr. Burton very readily, 
thinking it quite natural that such a musical clergy- 


JOHNNY GIDLOW, 


8i 


man should be loth to part with so rare a commodity 
as a faultless boy-soprano. 

In a similar matter the Doctor had not given way 
so readily. There had been a great Choral Festival 
at the Cathedral, and the Graycote Choir had been 
present amongst the large number of country choirs 
assembled in the mother-church of the diocese. Both 
the Rector and the Doctor were there, and in a little 
chat with the Dean at the end of the ceremony. South 
remarked in his laughing way that Mr. Burton pos- 
sessed a greater treasure than even the Cathedral choir 
could produce. 

Ho-ho ! ” said the Dean, we must rob him forth- 
with. We are looking everywhere just at this time 
for even a decent voice.” And the Very Rev. gentle- 
man turned to the Rector of Graycote with consider- 
able eagerness. 

Oh ! Mr. Dean,” said the latter, “ the lad would 
not do for your purpose at all. Quite an uneducated 
little rustic, you know. Reads music very imperfectly. 
Would be frightened to death in a place like this. 
Quite useless, Mr. Dean, take my word for it. Not 
at all the kind of boy for you.” Mr. Burton spoke 
with so much certainty that the Dean was convinced. 

Dr. South turned away in disgust. Only a week 
before, in the Doctor’s own hearing, the Rector had 
boasted to Lord Graycote that the Cathedral itself 
could not produce a treble equal to Gidlow and that 
probably it never would. 


82 JACK SOUTH 

These incicients were in Mr. Burton’s mind as he 
sat at Mr. Hunton’s dinner table and tried to converse 
with that gentle old man. They were in his mind as 
he drove home through the leafy lanes. They hurt 
him somewhat, he could not tell why, as he drove into 
Graycote, and, as he heard the tolling of a passing 
bell, he thought of Dr. South hurrying away to the 
death-bed of old Shaw in the early morning. Mr. 
Burton recalled some of the thousand and one in- 
stances of Dr. South’s unselfishness — instances that 
had come under his own notice : and as he thought of 
them he was conscious of a feeling which, to a man of 
principle, is one of the hardest to entertain — the feel- 
ing of having acted meanly. 

We have said that in the matter of the Cathedral 
choristership the Doctor did not easily give way. 
Again and again in conversation with his Rector he 
had returned to the subject — hoping that at least the 
claims of the mother-church of his diocese would ap- 
peal to that obdurate parson, even if he had no regard 
for the advancement of the boy. But no argument 
of the Doctor’s had prevailed. 

As Mr. Burton alighted from his trap and turned 
into the Rectory, the thought occurred to him that, 
by his own fault. Dr. South had become master of the 
situation. 


CHAPTER VIII 


AN ASSAULT 

"If there pushed any ragged thistle stalk 
Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents 
Were jealous else” — — Browning. 

On the day following the picnic, that is, the day 
of the Ruri-decanal Conference — Beige was griev- 
ously unwell. 

That he should lose a day’s work was not a serious 
inconvenience to the good man, because his work was 
never of a regular sort. There was no pressing need 
that it should be so. Beige was a man who, in the 
idiom of the Graycote people, had got ‘‘ a tidy bit of 
money lying by;” yet he did not scorn a job of any 
kind — provided that it yielded a fair return. Nomin- 
ally, he was the Hall boatman, an office that might 
almost have been called a sinecure. In his early man- 
hood he had owned a canal barge, consequently he 
was considered a very proper person to look after 
the Hall boat on the very rare occasions which it was 
used. But on Thursday morning Beige was com- 
paratively well. He had committed various indis- 
cretions on the day of the picnic — sleeping in the full 
heat of the sun, for instance, and taking tea on an 
empty stomach. So he told his neighbors. Now, 
however, he was sorry for his lack of wisdom, and, 

83 


84 


JACK SOUTH 


a much more important thing to Beige, was deter- 
mined that somebody else should be sorry for at least 
a portion of it. 

Thus the first visitor received by Davison Senior on 
this particular morning was Beige. Safely stowed 
away in one of Beige’s pockets was a twopenny cigar ; 
one of six the gardener’s son had taken to Tishley. 
Neatly arranged in Beige’s mind was a little speech he 
was about to make to Mr. Davison on the depravity 
of his son, John Davison. 

Probably there are few villages in England in which 
some of the inhabitants do not divide their Sunday 
hearing of sermons between the parish Church and 
the meeting-house. Not that Beige did this; he was 
a Methodist by conviction and conversion. Mr. 
Davison’s sympathies were with ‘‘the Chapel”; yet 
he seemed to owe it to his master, the Lord of Gray- 
cote, to put in a regular, if divided, attendance at 
Church. But the Graycote Methodists claimed the 
gardener as their very own and were not a little proud 
of his countenance and support. He was, in fact, one 
of their greatest men, and, as such, his Sunday morn- 
ing practice was condoned. 

“ It’s only doing as you’d be done by, sir,” said 
Beige when both speech and cigar were delivered and 
the angry father had thanked Beige for his informa- 
tion. “We all know what comes o’ smoking and 
drinking, Mr. Davison.” 

Beige knew — very well indeed. His experiences 


AN ASSAULT 


85 


were recent enough. But don’t think Beige was dis- 
honest on the point of that cigar. He had smoked it 
— and he told Mr. Davison so — quite forgetting at 
the time which of the boys had given him tobacco, 
until he saw young Davison throw away the stump of 
a cigar he had been smoking. The profusion of lux- 
uries heaped upon the boatman at a particular moment 
will be remembered. 

Yes, he had smoked that cigar, and it had caused 
him discomfort. At the same time — and this is 
worthy of notice as illustrating the number of motives 
that may lead to a particular action — Beige was hon- 
estly concerned in regard to the morals of young 
Davison. Above all things he wished to stand well in 
the favor of Davison’s father. 

Not a edifying ’abit at any age, Mr. Davison, is 
it ? But in a young lad — of respectable parents — 
it’s ’eart-rendin’.” 

‘‘ You were quite right to come to me. Beige. I’ll 
have a quiet talk with that young man before the 
morning’s over.” 

Davison Senior kept his word — greatly to the 
young man’s discomfiture. 

I’ll give you a downright good hiding if I catch 
you with this sort of stuff again,” — Mr. Davison had 
said, and John did not relish such plain speaking. It 
made him look and feel so very young. 

But who could have split? — he asked himself; 
either South or Gidlow, it was clear. Even though 


86 


JACK SOUTH 


Mr. Graycote had not only declined to smoke but had 
rebuked him in the matter, Davison felt quite sure 
that the young lord would think no more of such an 
occurrence. Besides, it was not yet ten o’clock, and 
Mr. Graycote rarely came out before that time. It 
could scarcely be South either, now he came to think 
of it, for where Mr. John was, there was his friend. 
It couldn’t be Beige. Of that he felt sure. It must, 
therefore, be Gidlow. 

The picnic of Tuesday had been so pleasant an af- 
fair, that, at the end of the day, Davison felt very 
kindly disposed towards each and every one of his 
companions. But a boy’s dislikes are often as 
capricious as his likes, and on the following day, 
Davison, going over all the details of the water party, 
had particularly examined himself on his own say- 
ings and doings thereat. They had been negative for 
the most part, and that did not please him. Of course, 
he would be able to quote the affair when he got back 
to school and would be able to say quite truthfully : — 
‘‘ When I was rowing up the river with the Hon. Mr. 
Graycote, etc.” I remember saying to the Hon. 
John Graycote when we were walking in Tishley 
Wood, — etc., etc. Also he had arranged quite a 
pleasant little fiction in the matter of those cigars. 
He would take a quantity of those ‘‘ twopennies ” 
back to school with him. How well it would sound 
to offer them as ‘‘ the very same kind of cigars I of- 


AN ASSAULT 87 

fered to Lord Graycote’s son one day, when we were 
out together.” 

All this was food for pleasant thought: but deep 
in Davison’s mind there were other considerations at 
work. What a hash he had made of his singing, for 
instance. The others had applauded him, of course, 
and he could not help feeling that croaky as was his 
voice, it would bear comparison with Mr. Graycote’s; 
but then — Mr. Graycote had not floundered hope- 
lessly in the very first verse of his one song as he, 
Davison, had done. Again, the memory of South’s 
and Gidlow’s music was disturbing. In an effort 
to be critical and contemptuous, he had told his mother 
that they sang like two professionals ! But Mrs. 
Davison had made matters worse by suggesting that 
he was giving them the highest possible praise. 

When, therefore, walking-stick in hand, the garden- 
er’s son left his father’s house this Thursday morning 
with his father’s threats in his ears and without either 
cigar-case, pipe, or fusee-box in his pocket, the young 
man was not precisely brimming over with good na- 
ture. He sauntered forth, however, twirling his cane, 
crossed the pretty little garden that separated the 
Davison’s house from the road, passing along that 
same road until he came to the Lodge at the principal 
entrance to Graycote Park. It was only a five-minutes 
walk from the gardener’s villa to the park gates, and 
as John Davison entered the Graycote demesne, he 


88 


.JACK SOUTH 


promised himself a solitary ramble among the oaks. 

Once in the park, two roads were open to him. 
Either he could take the footpath on the left hand 
and quickly find himself alone among the deer and the 
trees, or he could follow the high road that led to the 
front of the hall. Hesitating for a moment, he chose 
the latter. At a particular point of the broad drive, 
another road branching off led to the stable-yard. 
Again, from this a bridle path led to the kennels, and 
to a sort of supplementary kitchen-garden — one of 
his father’s latest schemes for utilising every bit of 
workable ground. 

Davison Junior had a weakness for dogs, and al- 
though Lord Graycote had for many years given up 
the care of fox-hounds, there was always some inter- 
esting beast or other to be found in the kennels. 
Moreover, William was generally hanging about there, 
and Davison and William were old friends. Wil- 
liam had given Davison his first pipe of baccy,” and 
the latter had returned it with interest. To-day, how- 
ever, seeing that Davison Senior was a long way off, 
attending to important matters in the conservatory 
under Lord Graycote’s own eyes — John Davison 
would draw on William for ‘‘ a screw.” 

Alas! William was not there. But Gidlow was. 

Johnny was in fact crossing the little square by the 
kennels with a basket of cabbage plants in his arms. 
He was whistling — whistling loudly and tunefully. 


AN ASSAULT 


89 

John Davison recognised the melody at once; Gid- 
low had sung it in the Tishley Wood. Davison, 
oblivious of the fact that Johnny had not seen him 
coming, concluded that the younger fad meant to be 
insulting. 

“ Stop that whistling, you Gidlow, and come here ! ’’ 
Johnny had almost reached the little gate that led 
from the kennel-yard into the new kitchen-garden. 
But he put down the basket at once, looking a little 
scared. 

‘‘ Come here ! you little cad ! ’’ 

Johnny advanced a few steps, and his enemy met 
him, making rapid cuts in the air with his cane. 

“ What have you been saying to my father ? ” 

‘‘ Nothing, sir.” 

“ You little liar ! You told him about those cigars.” 

I didn’t,” said Johnny, with a suspicion of de- 
fiance in his tone. 

Two stinging cuts with his cane was Davison’s re- 
tort. Johnny had put up his arms in defence, and the 
blows had fallen on them, leaving red weals on the 
not too fleshy limbs. 

‘'Stop that, John Davison!” said Gidlow rubbing 
his arms and looking Davison straight in the face. 

“ Going to be cheeky, eh ? ” exclaimed the garden- 
er’s son, surprised and angry with Gidlow’s look and 
tone. 

“ You’ve no right to hit me,” the smaller boy said. 


90 JACK SOUTH 

raising his voice. Besides, I ain’t done anything.’’ 

Perhaps not,” returned Davison, but you’ve said 
a good deal.” 

I’ve said nothing about you to anybody.” Johnny 
turned away, and began to walk back to the garden 
gate. 

‘‘ Come here ! ” Davison called out with increasing 
anger. But Johnny had taken up his basket and was 
trying to open the garden gate. 

It was a pity that the latch was so awkward. He 
placed his basket on the ground and tried with both 
hands to open the little rustic door. His back was 
towards the enemy and for whipping purposes was 
held conveniently. In another second a shower of 
blows was falling upon it. 

It is a problem perhaps as to whether a thin calico 
shirt is calculated to deaden the force of a particularly 
supple rod, dexterously applied, but when the shirt 
allows itself to be rent, the sufferer may or may not be 
able to distinguish between blows that fall on the bare 
flesh and those that strike the linen first of all. 
Johnny had this opportunity of distinguishing, whether 
he availed himself of it or not. What he was try- 
ing very hard to do was to get out of the corner made 
by the gate-post, the closed gate itself and the irate 
Davison. 

“ Mind your milk — and cherries ! ” roared the lat- 
ter as Johnny succeeded in wriggling himself half- 


AN ASSAULT 


91 


round. Put your — arms down — ’’ said Davison, 
between the strokes, one or two of which had been 
rendered abortive by the struggling. I’ll make a 
— pudding of your milk and cherries.” 

Then there came a suppressed cry which told of suf- 
fering and Davison didn’t like that cry. A loud angry 
outburst of tears and hard words he could have stood. 

But this was a long, low sob, kept under with diffi- 
culty and threatening to break out in much weeping. 
Very weak and cowardly on Johnny’s part, no doubt; 
but then Johnny was a real flesh and blood boy, and 
not a thing made up of so many scratches of a writer’s 
pen. 

Davison had turned away, a little ashamed, but 
scarcely sorry. 

Gidlow was leaning against the gate, his bare arms 
lying on the top bar and his face hidden in his hands. 
Of course he ought to have turned round to fight 
Davison on the spot. The pen-and-ink boy would 
have done so and have come off victorious in the bar- 
gain. Age and size and weight, and physical 
strength, difference of social standing, former rela- 
tions between the parties — these things affect pen- 
and-ink lads not at all. In actual life, however, each 
one of them is a factor. 

Davison had not struck the little lad in the face — 
had not meant to do so, in spite of his allusion to a 
cherry pudding — had not, indeed, meant to be cruel 


92 


JACK SOUTH 


at any point. “If lads are cheeky they must be 
punished; now the lad Gidlow was cheeky, therefore 
he must be punished.” 

This was the syllogism Davison had unconsciously 
made, and upon which he had immediately and con- 
sciously acted. That the punishment was more severe 
than he had intended it tO' be — well that was an acci- 
dental circumstance. 

So Davison strolled away, the sense of shame dis- 
appearing as he found himself out of ear-shot of 
Johnny’s sobbing. The logic of self- justification be- 
gan to take possession of him. 

The boy with his head bowed on the gate broke into 
louder weeping when he found himself alone. I am 
not going to say that the sense of the injustice of his 
beating hurt him more than the smart of his back and 
arms; nevertheless, the former did pain him a good 
deal. 

“ I never said a word to anybody,” he sobbed out 
again and again, “ he’s got no right to hit me like 
that.” He moved his foot uneasily, and it struck 
against the basket of cabbage plants. He felt that 
he must go on with his work, whatever his grievances 
might be. 

But he did not hurry in taking up the plants and 
passing into the garden. Even when he got there, he 
put down the hamper and began to examine his ex- 
terior. He could feel that his shirt was torn, and he 
thought there must be blood on it. Happily there 


AN ASSAULT 


93 


was not. The back was deeply scored, and the stripes 
were visible through the rent linen, but Johnnie 
could not see them. He felt them, however, a good 
deal. 

Once he thought he heard a scurry of light feet 
passing out of the kennel-yard, but he was stooping 
at the moment, and could not see over the wall without 
going right up to it, and he would not do that. He 
thought it must have been a dog, perhaps a couple 
of them, for he felt quite sure there was nobody in 
the kennels that morning. 

He was mistaken. There had been two people in 
an upper room of one of the various buildings, in 
the kennel-yard — two people so industriously em- 
ployed that, until the caning was all but over, they 
had been ignorant of the whole proceeding. 

From what was to John Graycote a very early hour, 
he and Jack South had been exploring the lofts and 
trying to find a suitable place for a sort of rough 
aviary — a pet scheme of Graycote’s for some time 
past and now brought to a head by the enthusiasm of 
South. 

They had been wandering through room after room, 
now stopping to examine the lumber that lay here and 
there and now discussing the suitability of one apart- 
ment and the disadvantages of another, when sud- 
denly they heard the sound of blows and a long, low 
cry. Both ran to the window and were just in time 

to see the last two or three strokes. 

7 


94 


JACK SOUTH 

Jack had immediately flown to the door, but Gray- 
cote cried out so imploringly that the former turned 
back. 

‘'Don’t, Jack, don’t! there’s a good fellow,” ap- 
) pealed Graycote, “you look murderous.” 

“ I feel it,” said Jack. Then Graycote had flung 
his arms about his friend, saying: — 

“ Then, don’t you see, old man, you’ll do no good, 
and are certain to do harm.” 

“ No doubt about the latter,” Jack said in a strained 
voice and trying to disengage himself from John’s 
hold. 

“You don’t know what has brought it about — 
now do you ?” Graycote went on. “ Perhaps Gidlow 
has done something wrong.” 

“Perhaps!” said Jack. “Anyhow, you’re right, 
but I can’t stand seeing a sparrow-hawk attack a 
nightingale.” 

They went on talking for some time in a low voice, 
and for once in the history of their friendship, Gray- 
cote influenced Jack against the latter’s will. 

Then they waited, peeping cautiously through the 
window to see if Johnny had disappeared. When at 
last they perceived him bending over his work in the 
garden, they decamped. 

Graycote had had the greatest difficulty in keeping 
Jack from going to the injured boy. 

“ Just at this moment, it will only make him hate 
Davison the more,” John had argued. Jack agreed. 


AN ASSAULT 


95 


at the same time forming an inward resolve which, 
for the present, should be a secret — even from his 
chum. 

What that resolution was is told in the following 
note addressed to young Davison, and which that 
young man found waiting for him when he returned 
home for dinner. 

" John Davison . — ^ 

“ I wish to meet you at your earliest convenience this afternoon. 
If you can show me that your treatment of Gidlow in the 
kennel-yard was right, I shall be sorry for his sake, but glad 
for yours. If you cannot justify yourself — we must fight. 

“Jack South.” 

“N. B. — I have not seen Gidlow himself on the subject, 
therefore I know nothing of his side of the question, except 
— that you beat him severely — and with a stick.” 

“ Graycote Hall, 

“Thursday morning.” 


CHAPTER IX 


A STIRRING DAY 

For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses 
Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses ; 

And, after much laying of heads together, 

Somebody’s cap got a notable feather. . . 

— Browning. 

In every sense of the word, Thursday was a stirring 
day for each of the four Jacks. 

When John Davison read South’s letter, his first 
impulse was to ignore the explanation demanded by 
the writer, and to accept the challenge. If he couldn’t 
lick Jack South — well, he’d never fight again, that’s 
all. 

On that day, the Davison’s dinner was an uncom- 
fortable meal. Both father and mother were silent 
and reserved, and young John knew that they had had 
“ words ” recently. He also knew that he himself 
had been the cause of this domestic trouble. 

Now it was important that he, John, should not 
fall out very seriously with his father — particularly 
at this time. Davison Senior had not yet given his 
full consent to the mother’s darling project of making 
her son a doctor. One son was a gardener like his 
father, had been away from home for years and was 
already saving money ; another was a tenant-farmer at 
a village a few miles away. 

96 


A STIRRING DAY 


97 


The elder Davison was ambitious, but not after the 
manner of his wife. He would have placed a son of 
his in any position that promised a speedy return of 
capital. For his son John to enter a profession, would 
mean a positive outlay extending over many years; 
the return might, on the other hand, be doubtful. 

To some extent, Davison the younger had his 
father’s gift of caution. Few men, or boys either, are 
quite destitute of this faculty when their interests are 
at stake; but to-day, as John Davison rose from the 
dinner table, he told himself that it would be well to 
think twice before answering South’s letter. So he 
wandered out into his father’s garden to think, not 
twice merely, but many times over, of the possible 
consequences of a pitched battle with the chum of 
Lord Graycote’s son. 

Davison was older and bigger than his antagonist, 
but then the latter was in such splendid condition. 
He always suggested to Davison a body made of in- 
dia-rubber, for South could throw himself about like 
an acrobat. As for pluck — well, Davison knew that 
his enemy would stand up as long as he had a breath 
left in his body. 

Then the gardener’s son thought of his own fatness 
and the unhealthy condition to which he was reduced 
by nearly six weeks of steady smoking and rash feed- 
ing. What if he had to go back to school bruised 
and battered, or worse still, with a blue-black eye? 
He would not for a moment admit that there was a 


98 


JACK SOUTH 


chance of his coming off second-best, but he was 
obliged to allow that in a prolonged fight with a deter- 
mined combatant some little accident of an unpleasant 
sort was sure to happen — to himself. John Davison 
was not a coward. Very careful of his own reputa- 
tion, and physical well-being, he certainly was. It 
was not so much that he feared to meet his enemy, 
or that he anticipated defeat, as that he foresaw cer- 
tain inevitable consequences of a painful sort, and 
these both in the moral and physical order. 

The elder Davison was as much impressed with 
the wisdom of ‘‘ keeping in ’’ with the Souths as was 
the elder Gidlow with the necessity of not being ‘‘ at 
outs ’’ with the Davisons. Dr. South was very much 
more to Lord Graycote than a mere acquaintance. 
No one realised this better than the head gardener. 
Young John Davison had been unpleasantly reminded 
of it that very day. Cross-questioned by his father 
as to the smoking on the day of the picnic, he had 
truthfully admitted that neither Mr. Graycote nor 
Jack South had smoked, though he, Davison, had 
given both of them the opportunity. These facts had 
increased his father’s anger a good deal. The gar- 
dener had notions of what was due to the ‘‘ quality,” 
notions his son thought absurdly exaggerated but 
which he was bound to respect — at least in the neigh- 
borhood of Graycote.’ 

Now to figlit the son of Dr. South, the intimate 
of Lord and Lady Graycote — to fight a boy, the 


A STIRRING DAY 


99 


inseparable companion of the Graycote heir — re- 
ceived in the Graycote drawing-room and petted by 
Lady Graycote herself! — John Davison turned pale 
at the very thought of it. 

Such an idea could not be entertained for a moment. 
But, how to get out of the business without seeming 
to be an arrant coward? 

John felt the perspiration breaking out all over him. 
Sitting on the grass, he took the letter from his pocket 
and read it for the twentieth time. 

We must fight.” The words were heavily un- 
derlined. 

What if South insisted! He was just a lump of 
determination, Davison reflected. The very hand- 
writing of the letter looked combative ! At your 
earliest convenience this afternoon.” Surely, Davison 
thought, here is a loophole — he has mentioned no ex- 
act time or place. Only — he looked round uneasily 
and with a scared expression, half expecting to see the 
would-be-pugilist bearing down upon him. It would 
be like South, he knew, to seek him out, unless that 
note were answered quickly. 

But an idea came to Davison’s mind, and one that 
made him rise hastily and re-enter the house. He 
would try to see Mr. Graycote. How to effect this 
without, at the same time, encountering South, was 
the difliculty. 

It was now a quarter-past two; the Hall luncheon 
was at half-past one. Davison was not sure that Mr. 


lOO 


JACK SOUTH 


Graycote was at home, but he determined to find out 
without loss of time. Sitting down, he wrote a short 
and a very respectful note to Mr. Graycote, asking, 
almost begging, for a few minutes’ conversation. 
Somewhat alarmed at his own boldness, he dropped 
the envelope into his pocket and set off for the Hall. 

Going in by the kitchen entrance, he inquired for 
Wilkins, the butler, and finding his way to the butler’s 
pantry he came upon the old servant just as the latter 
was replenishing a claret- jug for conveyance to the 
luncheon table. 

Mr. Graycote was at home, the butler said, adding 
that Dr. South and his son were lunching with the 
family. 

Davison fingered his letter uneasily. 

‘‘ I suppose it wouldn’t do to send this in just now, 
would it?” asked Davison. 

“ Well,” said the butler, '' if it’s important, I’ll take 
it in myself; his lordship has left orders for all im- 
portant letters to be taken up as soon as they arrive.” 

‘‘ It is rather important, in fact, very important,” 
said Davison anxiously. 

The butler took the letter and looked at the in- 
scription. 

‘‘ For the Hon. Mr. Graycote ; very well. From 
your father I suppose.” 

No, not exactly. But do you think, Mr. Wilkins, 
you could bring me an answer very soon?” 


A STIRRING DAY 


lOI 


The butler looked wonderingly at the gardener’s 
son. 

“ Well, ril give it to him, you know, and if he 
sends a message — all well and good.” 

Davison felt grateful for this much, though his 
nervousness increased as the butler left him. 

“ I suppose Wilkins won’t come back till the lunch 
is over,” the lad thought. ‘‘ But that’ll be all the bet- 
ter, perhaps; then Mr. Graycote is sure to send a 
message or a note.” 

In three or four minutes, however, the butler re- 
turned. 

'' Come this way ! ” said Wilkins. The man showed 
him into Mr. Graycote’s study. “He’ll come to you 
when luncheon’s over,” the butler remarked as he 
closed the door. 

At any other time Davison would have eyed the 
room with interest, for he had never set foot in it 
before. To-day, it did not look at all inviting, and 
indeed it was not a particularly interesting room. 
Specimens were everywhere — botanical, geological, 
and entomological, and a smell of chemicals was in 
the air. There were many books and much fishing 
tackle. A vase of roses on the writing table made 
almost the only bit of color in the room. 

Davison sat down and tried to think how he could 
best put the request he had to make to young South’s 
bosom friend. He almost wished now that he had 


102 


JACK SOUTH 


not come. The business began to look so ugly. He 
would be obliged to make confession of very doubtful 
deeds. Up to this moment he had thought very little 
of his chastisement of Gidlow — especially since the 
time he had betaken himself out of ear-shot of his 
victim’s crying. Now, however, the fact was begin- 
ning to dawn upon him that he had but the poorest 
possible excuse for that action of his. 

He would have run away if he had dared, but he 
was afraid that he might meet the family leaving the 
dining-room. 

It was no good, he thought; he must stay, and 
brave it out as best he might. 

During the twenty minutes or so that he sat there 
waiting, John Davison suffered. 

At length, however, he heard voices outside. Jack 
South’s was particularly distinct. 

Surely,” Davison thought, “ Mr. Graycote won’t 
bring him here ! ” 

But the party passed the study door, and Davison 
could hear Lady Graycote and South talking together. 
Then the door opened, and John Graycote came in. 

** Good morning ; you want to see me ? ” 

His tone was freezing, Davison thought, as Gray- 
cote came up to him, looking older by several years 
— so it seemed to the petitioner — than he had done 
three days ago. Both the lads were standing on the 
hearth-rug. 

I hope yoir’ll excuse my boldness in troubling yop 


A STIRRING DAY 


103 

just now, sir,’’ began Davison. “It’s about Mr. 
South.” 

Graycote had been studying the floor through his 
spectacles, but now he’ turned his eyes upon Davison 
sharply enough. The latter could not help thinking 
what fearfully cold, sharp eyes they were. Graycote 
did not Speak; he was waiting, more anxiously than 
Davison imagined, for further information. 

“ I’ve had a note from him, sir.” 

Graycote was still silent. Davison hesitated about 
showing him the letter. It occurred to the gardener’s 
son for the first time that Graycote might have seen 
the note before it was sent off. It was dated “ Gray- 
cote Hall.” At any rate. South’s chum was sure to 
know something of Gidlow’s chastisement. 

“You know what happened this morning, sir?” 

“ Yes,” said John, again bringing his spectacles to 
bear upon the floor. 

Davison had already a^ked himself how South could 
have heard of the matter, seeing that Gidlow had not 
told him the story. But of course, the little cad had 
gone blubbering all over the place, telling everybody, 
so that the thing would soon reach the ears of South. 

“ It would never do, Mr. John, to — to — ” Davi- 
son was fingering the open letter, still hesitating 
whether to put it into the other’s hand. The heir of 
Graycote stood impassively enough in appearance, but 
in reality burning with anxious curiosity. How Davi- 
son wished that Mr. John would do a little of the talk- 


104 jack south 

ing ! As they stood there in silence for a few seconds, 
a door opened in the distance, and there came a crash 
of pianoforte music, followed by the impassioned sing- 
ing of some wonderful melody. Graycote recognised 
it as the grand Cavatina in Semiramide. But the 
door closed again, and a quiet afternoon silence pre- 
vailed in Graycote’s study. Both the listening lads 
had recognised South’s voice, and both were relieved. 

Without further hesitation Davison handed the let- 
ter to Graycote. 


Three minutes afterwards John Graycote entered 
the drawing-room. Jack was in the middle of a 
pianissimo passage as his friend came in and sat down 
on the first available chair — sat down to listen and 
to wait. The Cavatina was finished. Jack was sing- 
ing a few bars of Adalziza’s music in Norma- — only 
a few bars in order to lead up to the passion music of 
the Arch-Druidess herself. Graycote started as the 
music changed, suddenly and swiftly, and Jack’s sure 
fingers swept the keys in a kind of whirlwind, while 
his voice became charged with all the wrath and scorn 
of which it was capable. 

If he will only spend himself thus,” Graycote re- 
flected. 

Lady Graycote and Dr. South were listening breath- 
lessly, as Jack seemed to gather new force from the 
awful passage. The instrument at which the singer 
sat trembled under the weight of his vigorous pound- 


A STIRRING DAY 


105 


ing. Graycote was scarcely a musical critic, but he 
saw that Jack was punishing the Broad wood too 
heavily. 

Could Jack see Davison’s head on the keyboard? 

John looked at his friend, and thought he had 
never seen him looking so pale, and at the same time 
so scornful, as at this moment. 

But relief came with the finale, though Jack did not 
linger over the pathos of the concluding bars as he had 
been wont to do. 

My dear boy ! you quite frightened me,” exclaimed 
Lady Graycote, as Jack rose from the piano. Young 
Graycote had risen and was whispering to his mother, 
for as Jack had turned his pale face upon the com- 
pany his friend saw that it was blanched and ghastly. 

Certainly, John,” said Lady Graycote aloud, go 
outside for a little while. Pardon me, dear, I was 
very selfish: it was much too soon after luncheon for 
music of that sort. And of course, you boys have 
been running yourselves to death all the morning.” 

Dr. South was looking curiously at Jack, half- 
minded to take his son’s pulse. But Graycote was 
hurrying the latter out of the room. 

I’m all right, John,” the pale musician said, as his 
friend took him back to the dining-room. '' Good of 
making a fuss ! ” 

You haven’t a particle of color left in your face. 
Jack.” 

‘‘No more have you, for that matter. And you 


io6 JACK SOUTH 

look scared, to boot. John, something’s happened! 
What is it ? ” 

Graycote went to the window and looked out. 

‘‘John, something’s up!” Jack rushed to the win- 
dow. “For goodness sake, tell us what it is? Look 
here ” — Jack took out his watch — “ I’ve an appoint- 
ment in — ” 

“ That’s just it, Jack,” cried Graycote, facing round. 

“Just what?” 

“ That appointment of yours. You can’t keep it, 
Jack!” 

“ But you don’t know — ” 

“ I do know,” Graycote said, in a deep, determined 
voice. “ Davison’s in the house.” 

“The sneaking brute!” South ejaculated. “I’ll 
thrash him within an inch of his miserable life. What 
business — ” 

“ Do listen to reason, Jack,” said Graycote, trying 
to put his arm in that of his friend. 

“ I’ll listen to anything you like when I’ve licked 
that bully of a Davison.” 

“ Jack, do be reasonable for a moment. You know 
this fight cannot come off.” 

“ Who says so? ” Jack had shaken himself free 
of his friend, and was standing at bay with his back 
against the sideboard. “ Who says it can’t come 
off? Now look here, John — ” South lowered his 
voice and fixed his dark fiery eyes on his friend, while 
his face became rigid with half-stifled rage. “ Listen, 


A STIRRING DAY 


107 


John! I gave way to you this morning, and don’t 
regret it. But you mustn’t try to come between me 
and Davison twice in one day. I will fight him, and 
he shall fight me ! ” 

Jack turned to leave the room, but before he could 
do so the door opened and Dr. South entered. 

Thank God ! ” Graycote muttered under his breath, 
slipping quietly out of the room, though determined 
to stand sentinel at the door. 

‘‘ Tell me all about it, old fellow,” said the Doctor, 
taking hold of Jack’s wrist. ‘‘Something’s gone 
wrong. Jack,” he added, looking at his watch. But 
the father did not show his anxiety at the terrible beat 
of his son’s pulse. 

Jack turned his head away for a moment, he felt 
that, unless he made a great effort, he would give way 
to tears. The re-action was setting in. 

The Doctor led him to a chair, and took one by 
his side. 

“ You and John have had a little quarrel, eh? ” the 
Doctor asked. But Jack could not trust himself to 
speak. He was wondering what his father would say 
to this business, if he knew all. He would have told 
him about it — though, perhaps only when the fight 
was over. 

But now — Jack would tell him everything — and 
at once. 

“ It’s a clear case of bullying,” said Dr. South when 
Jack, calmly though indignantly eloquent, had finished 


io8 JACK SOUTH 

his story. “ In some circumstances, quite the case to 
justify a fight.” 

“ I thought you’d say so,” cried Jack excitedly. 

‘‘ But here, and now, you mustn’t think of it. Re- 
member — I won’t say the Graycotes — but your 
mother. At school it would be different. Even 
mothers know that such things must be — sometimes. 
But don’t you see. Jack, that in Graycote a regular 
stand-up fight between the gardener’s son and your- 
self would be sure to give scandal.” 

“ But we could have it out in some private place, 
dad.” 

The Doctor shook his head. You would find 
that the report of it would soon leak out of your pri- 
vate place. No, old man, it can’t be. Have some 
explanation from Davison by all means, and let John 
Graycote be present. Get to know what led to the 
assault — what Johnny Gidlow had done to provoke 
it. You have assisted at school councils, haven’t 
you?” 

“ Yes, dad.” Jack had been woefully down until 
this moment; he began to brighten a little now. 

‘‘Very well then; you and Graycote examine the 
case in form. Both of you have a sort of right to do 
so. It will be much better than making a fuss about 
it — speaking to Lord Graycote or even to Davison’s 
father. Insist upon some sort of compensation, and 
if you have any particular difficulties, come to me. 
I shall be at home soon after six.” 


A STIRRING DAY 


109 


Dr. South rose, pulling one of Jack’s curls by way 
of adieu and saying — I shall trust you in this mat- 
ter, Jack. How’s the pulse? Ah, better, decidedly. 
Mind those outbursts, my lad; they are dangerous 
in two ways. You know what I mean.” Jack put 
his hand in the Doctor’s, and looked up into his face. 

Thanks, dad — I’m awfully sorry. I was in a 
frightful wax.” 

‘^Where’s John?” asked Dr. South, opening the 
dining-room door. Graycote was looking at a painted 
window at the end of the gallery, but came running 
up immediately. 

It’s all right,” the Doctor said, as he shook hands 
with both the lads, and prepared to leave the hall. 

“ Put your heads together, quietly, and see what you " 
can do: Jack will explain.” 

The Doctor went back to the drawing-room to as- 
sure Lady Graycote that his son was recovering and 
that John and Jack were together in the former’s 
study. He had seen them move in that direction. 

But, as a matter of fact. Jack was not there — for 
the present at least. John had persuaded him to wait 
a little while before seeing Davison. Jack had con- 
sented gladly. 

Davison had been waiting anxiously. It was now 
long past four o’clock. 

Mr. South will not insist upon the terms laid 
down in his letter,” said Graycote, to the gardener’s 
son. 


8 


no 


JACK SOUTH 


You mean, sir, that he won’t — I jnean that he 
does not wish to — that is — ” 

Graycote would not help him out. He could not 
bear the sound of the word fight so, after a slight 
pause, he said quickly: 

The letter was, of course, writen in a great hurry 
and apparently very soon after he had witnessed that 
painful scene in the kennel-yard. He will be here in 
a moment to talk the matter over.” 

Davison was aghast. It had never occurred to him 
that any living person could be in those disused rooms, 
or, indeed, in any place of vantage within the neigh- 
borhood of the kennels! 

“ There are several points to discuss,” continued 
Graycote, looking at the perturbed Davison and put- 
ting on quite the air of a County magistrate. ‘‘ Per- 
haps I ought to tell you at once that I myself saw 
and heard something of this affair. But I will find 
Mr. South, if you will excuse me for one moment.” 

Davison, once more alone eying the specimens, 
wished emphatically that he hadn’t applied to Mr. 
Graycote. It was something, of course, to be rid of 
the (possibly painful) necessity of fighting, but to sit 
there and be browbeaten by a couple of lads, both of 
them his juniors, was more than he had bargained 
for. 

He had, however, little time for reflection. Gray- 
cote returned with South almost immediately. Davi- 
son eyed the latter curiously and was almost shocked 


A STIRRING DAY 


III 


at the unnatural expression of his face. Could that 
be the boy who, a day or two ago, was making Tish- 
ley Wood and the whole riverside, ring with laughter 
and song? 

“ I am forbidden to fight you, Davison,” Jack be- 
gan as soon as he entered the room. “ My father has 
forbidden it. I want you to understand that.” 

Graycote looked distressed. He had hoped that 
Jack would sit down quietly and that the business 
would proceed with a certain amount of form. He 
was afraid Jack would bring the thing to an end 
summarily. 

Why did you thrash Gidlow ? ” demanded South. 
Graycote pushed a chair towards his friend, but South 
did not perceive it. 

‘‘ Well, Mr. South,” said Davison in an injured 
tone, he had been sneaking. Then he told me a 
lie, and when I reminded him of it he was cheeky.” 

“ You are sure of all this? ” South^s dark eyes were 
fixed upon the gardener’s son and the latter felt 
them. Faltering somewhat, he gave his reasons for 
supposing that Gidlow had told Davison Senior of the 
smoking. No one else could have done so, he added. 

Jack was puzzled. Reflecting that he would be able 
to settle that point later on, he said : 

“ And you thought these offences justified you in 
committing a serious assault upon a small boy? You 
know, of course, that the Gidlows can prosecute you, 
if they please?” 


112 


JACK SOUTH 


Davison paled visibly. The fight would have been 
better than this, he thought to himself. Egged on 
by young South, there was no knowing what Gidlow’s 
father and mother might not do. Visions of County 
magistrates — Gidlow’a enraged parents — his own 
irate father — newspaper paragraphs, etc., passed be- 
fore Davison’s mind and prevented him from reply- 
ing to South’s question. 

The silence that followed was broken by a question 
from Graycote. 

Had Davison seen Gidlow since the affair of the 
morning? ” The reply was a muttered no.” 

South had been walking up and down the room — 
less excitedly than he had paced the dining-room, it is 
true. Suddenly, however, he stopped and made a 
signal to Graycote, and the two left the room. 


CHAPTER X 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 

“ There’s difference as I take it, betwixt the clattering o’ 
swords and quart pots, the effusion of blood and claret wine 
— the smoke of guns and tobacco.” — Cowley. 

There was in Graycote Grange a queer little room 
of fair dimensions, opening out of the principal stair- 
case by one of those architectural freaks only found 
in an ancient house. For years it had been known as 
the “ Dust Bin,’" or ‘‘ Jack’s Bin,” as also the “ Bin o’ 
Jack,” and the ‘^Jackobin.” Jack South always de- 
clared that his sisters could call it what they pleased, 
so long as they kept it in order when he was away 
and permitted him the use of it when he was at home. 
Now, as Jack was greatly loved by these same sisters, 
and as he did not presume upon their affection by af- 
fecting to treat them as mere nuisances, they never 
let an opportunity slip of doing the very thing they 
knew would give him pleasure. 

For a time at least, Kitty South, who, as we have 
said, was a year younger than Jack, pretended to be 
the sole guardian of ‘‘ the Bin ” in Jack’s absence; but 
one had only to inspect this very desirable den to see 
that whoever was its custodian, not one of the sisters 
had been absent at its decoration. Every holiday, in- 

113 


JACK SOUTH 


114 

deed, brought its new feature of interest to the room, 
which, by the way. Jack had recently threatened to 
re-name the Gold-dust Bin U though, in truth, there 
was little enough of the precious metal to be found 
in it. 

But Jack’s idea of gold was seen in the big water- 
color drawing of Raphael’s St. Cecilia, which occu- 
pied the place of honor, and was the work of 
Minnie. Hanging on the walls, littered over the man- 
telpiece, and erected on brackets, were many smaller 
water-color drawings, pen and ink sketches and 
photographs — from portraits of the boy Shakespeare, 
sturdy and thoughtful, and young Milton, almost an- 
gelic in his refined beauty, to Paul Jullien, the won- 
derful boy virtuoso, and the youthful Liszt. 

Kitty’s artistic work is easily distinguishable for — 
tell it not to Miss Burgon (because she knows it 
already, poor lady) — Jack’s youngest sister has a 
turn for caricature. Here is the tiny child Mozart 
proposing marriage to the already grown-up and beau- 
tiful Marie Antoinette; here is young Sebastian Bach 
copying his stolen MS. by moonlight. There is a 
touch of pathos in these ; but look at Haydn’s Dis- 
grace,” the latest work from Kitty’s pencil. One 
hardly knows if she wishes to emphasise the Serve 
him right,” or to excite one’s sympathy. The big 
chorister-boy stands in the old sacristy, with his hands 
behind him, protesting that he will leave the choir 
rather than submit to the indignity of being caned on 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 115 

those same hands; and the hard-hearted Chapel-mas- 
ter, knowing that the lad’s voice is breaking, coolly 
answers him that he may go where he likes when he 
has had his punishment. There is irresistible humor 
in the turn of the uplifted cane, the determined look 
of the man and the very obstinate clasping of the 
boy’s hands behind his back. 

To-night Jack is hiding away this spirited sketch, 
for he is expecting visitors. And among the said 
visitors is a chorister boy who has that day been caned 
and another boy who has acted the part of caner. To 
neither of these will such a picture suggest pleasant 
reminiscences. Jack thinks. 

Metaphorically, at least, the Doctor’s son is raising a 
dust in the little ‘‘ Bin.” We say metaphorically, be- 
cause of actual dust there is little or none. This is 
not Jack’s fault, however. Stipulating that no servant 
should be allowed to enter the room with broom or 
duster, at any rate during the holidays, Mrs. South 
gave way on the understanding that Jack himself 
would keep the room tidy. Visiting the Bin in person 
a week later. Jack’s mother had been horrified to find 
it covered with matter out of place. Henceforth no 
entreaties of her son prevailed with Mrs. South to for- 
bid periodical dusting and sweeping on the part of the 
housemaid. 

But in clearing the writing table, putting books on 
their shelves and piling-up music. Jack is working 
with characteristic vigor. The little pianette at the 


ii6 


JACK SOUTH 


end of the room creaks under the weight of all sorts 
of odds and ends that have no right to be in the room 
at all. However, Mrs. South had generously given 
way in the matter of litter, and did not insist upon 
apple-pie order. There was a proper place for bats 
and racquets, all the same. 


It is nearly half-past six, the time at which the visit- 
ors are due. Jack reflects. He has done a fair amount of 
work since four o’clock. Rushing from Graycote Hall 
with a well-defined intention of finding Beige and de- 
manding if he had abused the hospitality of Davison 
by reporting him. Jack had encountered Mrs. Davison 
herself, taking a solitary afternoon walk. Seeing that 
she looked troubled and fancying that she wished to 
speak to him. Jack stopped and, in his ready way, 
shook hands with her. That she was Davison’s 
mother scarcely occurred to Jack. He was only con- 
scious of the fact that she was a woman and a mother. 
She began at once to speak of her son and, to Jack’s 
delight, of the smoking episode. Had South seen her 
son smoking before or since the day of the picnic? 
she inquired anxiously. 

Jack forgot everything in the pleasure of assuring 
her that he had not. At once she spoke of Beige and 
the information he had given to her husband that 
morning. Jack felt so happy that he was ready to 
anathematise Beige for his perfidy, in the presence of 
Mrs. Davison at least; for South rejoiced that Gidlow 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 117 

had not acted the part of informer. But it was clear 
to Jack that he had relieved Mrs. Davison’s mind, and 
when he left her he found himself more kindly disposed 
towards John Davison. 

Think of your mother,” the Doctor had said that 
afternoon. Jack had done so, and returning to Gray- 
cote’s study he was thinking of Davison’s mother. 
Above all things he rejoiced that the good woman 
was ignorant of the events of the day. 

And now matters progressed rapidly. Davison’s 
confusion was greater than ever, when Jack told him 
of the real informer. The gardener’s son gave in 
and threw himself upon the mercy of his judges. As 
Jack expressed it to his friend afterwards, Davison 
ate humble-pie by the ton. He would make any apol- 
ogy, tender any compensation, offer any reparation, 
that Graycote and South could suggest. Then Jack 
became generous and forgiving. When Davison vol- 
unteered to seek out Gidlow and ask his forgiveness, 
making at the same time a substantial peace offering. 
Jack exclaimed; 

'' Bring him round to the Grange afterwards. 
We’ll have a feast of reconciliation.” 

But Johnny had made such haste to leave the Hall 
grounds after his work was over that, although 
Davison left the study as the clock was striking six, he 
could not find Gidlow among the group of work peo- 
ple who were slowly moving towards the village. 
Could it be that Johnnie had gone home early in the 


ii8 


JACK SOUTH 


day — ill and suffering? Davison noticed the elder 
Gidlow among the laborers on the road, but he could 
not bring himself to speak to the man whose child 
he had injured so recently and who, no doubt, was 
acquainted with the whole matter. So Davison hesi- 
tated for some time, not knowing how to proceed. 
Turning into his own home he encountered his mother. 
He would not tell her everything, he thought, but he 
must needs ask her for certain things he had promised 
to bestow upon Johnny. 

South had reminded him of the torn shirt, suggest- 
ing a new one in its place, and anything else of the 
same kind Davison could conveniently offer. The 
gardener’s son knew there would be little or no diffi- 
culty in obtaining such things as these, but the sub- 
stantial sum of money ” Graycote had suggested, 
would not be so easy to get. 

Making up a small bundle, and leaving it where he 
could find it later in the evening, Davison set out for 
the place where he knew from his own past experiences 
the village lads played cricket. Johhny was not get- 
ting his innings, indeed he was not playing at all. Ly- 
ing on the grass apart from the other lads, he was 
looking lonely and disconsolate, making now and then 
a miserable attempt to nibble a slice of thick bread 
and butter. Seeing Davison bearing down upon him 
hastily, the lad rose and looked round in a despairing 
sort of way, as though seeking for some place of re- 
treat in the big meadow. 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION -119 

Don’t ! ” Davison called out — “ Don’t run away. 
I want to speak to you. I want,” he said coming 
close up to the puzzled lad and taking his hand — ‘‘ I 
want to beg your pardon, Johnny; I want to ask you 
to forgive me.” Then Davison led him away from 
the field, down the long lane to Park Road and to the 
gardener’s house. At first Johnny hung back, and 
for some time he walked unwillingly; but Davison 
talked and coaxed incessantly, though he was disturbed 
by his companion’s obstinate silence. 

But in a little while Davison mentioned South’s 
name, and gave to the wondering lad South’s message 
and invitation. Then Johnny voluntarily put his hard 
little hand into Davison’s, looking up into the latter’s 
face with an expression which said very plainly, I 
forgive you.” 

They were late in getting to the Grange, where 
they found Jack in a high state of pleased excite-, 
ment and Graycote making himself useful in a ca- 
pacity to him both novel and interesting. The South’s 
family dinner was iii preparation below, and the serv- 
ants were busy enough. Jack knew. Consequently he 
had promised his mother that this extempore meal in 
the Bin ” should give as little trouble as possible to 
the household. 

Just a few sandwiches, mother, and — well, a 
thing or two in the tart line, you know ” — he had 
said, hoping secretly that his mother would extend 
the thing or two,” as only she was capable of doing. 


120 


JACK SOUTH 


If there is any fruit ” — he added, to Mrs. South’s 
amusement — ‘‘ or any dessert things going ” — 

It was in vain she pointed out to him that he was 
robbing Graycote of a comfortable dinner. John was 
present, and protested that an indoor picnic would be 
the delightfullest treat possible. Moreover, he would 
help Jack to carry the things upstairs. He had been 
keeping his promise nobly; though to be sure he had 
not far to go, for a servant brought the trays to the 
foot of the staircase, and Jack would allow him to carry 
nothing that looked heavy. All the same, Graycote 
had nearly come to grief under the weight of a dish of 
cheese-cakes. 

Now, John, you’ve done enough for one night,” 
Jack was exclaiming as Davison and Gidlow reached 
the entrance hall of the Grange. 

I don’t want to have to pick up your mangled 
remains from a mass of crushed pastry and broken 
crockery. It would make a fellow sticky and uncom- 
fortable, to say nothing of the chance of cut fingers. 
Broken your specs of course! No? What a won- 
der! John, you’ll never do for a page-in-waiting. 
You must take a lower seat. This for instance ” — 
Jack led his friend to the only low-cushioned chair the 
Bin contained. 

'Tsn’t that comfortable? ” 

But before Graycote could respond, Davison and 
Gidlow were in the room, both smiling, but disin- 
clined to venture beyond the doorway. 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 121 

** Now, don’t stand looking at us as if we were an 
exhibition,” cried Jack, making a rush at the pair of 
them and pushing them in the direction of the sofa — 
an article of furniture South, declared he could sleep 
upon — was always resolving that he would utilise 
as a bed, though he invariably changed his mind when 
bed-time came. 

I am delighted to see you both. So is Mr. Gray- 
cote.” John had risen and was standing aimlessly, 
near the piano, beaming through his glasses, and hesi- 
tating whether he ought not to shake hands all round. 

Johnny was wondering if the “ Bin ” was some lit- 
tle banqueting hall, used, perhaps, by the Souths on 
particular occasions. He felt himself blushing a good 
deal, but he was too happy to be uncomfortable, though 
he had not quite shaken himself into the new-old 
clothes provided by Davison. 

South had disappeared for a moment, and Gray- 
cote found himself tongue-tied. But after a short 
time he remarked : “ An interesting room this, isn’t 

it ? ” Davison had been mentally comparing it with 
the “ study ” at Graycote Hall, rather to the disad- 
vantage of Graycote’s den. Before he could reply. 
South danced into the Bin ” with two dishes of fruit 
in his hands. 

‘‘First fruits!” he exclaimed, placing the peaches 
and apricots in the centre of the table. “ Almost too 
beautiful to be eaten ; nevertheless, only the stones shall 
survive to tell the story of the slaughter.” 


122 


JACK SOUTH 


Then declaring that the “ scratch meal/’ as he called 
it, was only waiting to be eaten, he handed plates to 
his guests, bidding them retain their seats and pro- 
ceeding to carry round the toothsome plenty with 
which the writing table was heaped. 

It’s really wonderful what my mother can do, when 
she gives her mind to a thing,” he said. Graycote was 
thinking how wonderful it was that Jack should be 
able to make peace as readily as he had declared war ; 
for John thought lightly of his own share in the 
pacification. 

It was a merry meal enough, though Jack was a 
little disappointed at Gidlow’s silence. Later on he 
saw with delight that Johnny was really appeasing 
his hunger and that the lad was thoroughly happy, 
in spite of the unusual surroundings in which he found 
himself. 

“ I hope you’ll give us some Chirps later on,” said 
Graycote as Jack came round to him for the tenth time 
with a fresh delicacy. 

‘‘ John! what do you mean? ” asked South, with af- 
fected surprise. Confess that you’ve been rummag- 
ing! ” 

‘‘ I confess. Didn’t you give me leave years ago ? ” 

‘‘ Of course. But I say, John, you must have swept 
the top of the piano with your spectacles to have found 
that book.” 

‘‘ Then you were trying to hide it ? I thought so. 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 123 

How very mean of you not to have mentioned it in 
your letters.” 

‘‘ You revealed all the secrets of your own prison- 
house, didn’t you ? ” 

All except my learning of the flute.” 

“ And I — all, except the writing of the Chirps. 
How now, John? say we’re quits.” 

‘‘I will,” said Graycote, laughing; ‘‘but as I have 
given you the questionable pleasure of my tootling on 
a former occasion, I can reasonably demand the un- 
questionable pleasure of listening to some of your so- 
called Chirps. Whyever did you give them that name, 
Jack! I expect they are mfich more like warbles than 
chirps.” 

“ Don’t be complimentary in advance, John. Wait 
until the Sparrow jumps on his perch and opens his 
beak. At present he’s engaged in testing the flavor 
of a ripe peach. Now, nightingale! ” said South, ad- 
dressing Gidlow — “ this fruit was grown for un- 
feathered birds of the boy species. You can’t eat 
too much of it, seeing that it’s ripe. Davison, do set 
us all a good example in this matter. Those peaches 
are blushing from pure consciousness of their own 
beauty and flavor.” 

Two of the boys were certainly blushing with — 
perhaps a mixture of self-consciousness and pleasure; 
but Jack set them such a perfect example of the method 
of attacking ripe peaches, at the same time abandoning 


124 


JACK SOUTH 

himself to such a spirit of gaiety and fun that the 
guests in the dining-room could hear peals of laughter 
from the Bin” and were moved to merriment in 
consequence. Once or twice it had occurred to Gray- 
cote that the people below were laughing in chorus 
with the boys. He thought it was a little like an- 
tiphonal chanting of a very pleasant kind. 

Jack had been telling some school stories, which ap- 
pealed strongly to the interest and sense of humor 
of everybody present; and Gidlow had at one point 
become so choked with laughter as to find courage 
to murmur — “ Please don't, Sir ! ” Whereupon — 
Jack, having assured hint in an absurdly solemn man- 
ner, that, “ as far as he knew, he hadn’t touched 
him ” — Johnny began to show symptoms of apo- 
plexy. 

‘‘ The rows we had over the title of this manuscript 
book of songs,” said Jack in answer to a reiterated 
question of Graycote’s anent Chirps, “ would fill a 
folio, if anybody would be foolish enough to write an 
account of them. Two or three of the contributions 
are not mine, so that I had to submit to all kinds of 
suggestions of titles on the part of interested people. 
One fellow, who wrote quite the best thing in the 
book, wanted to call the collection Hoots, or Owl 
Hoots! Failing that, he said Cock Crows wouldn’t be 
bad. But a gushing young person — whose sister has 
actually published a volume of poetry — was rendered 
lastingly unhappy because I would not call the thing 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 


125 


IVurblings at Eve. (Now do be quiet, John; I assure 
you there isn’t a warble in the whole book.) Then 
a young man — who, by the way, ought to have known 
better, seeing that he had just been birched for cutting 
a gas-pipe — said he’d withdraw his contribution if 
I didn’t entitle the book Pipings. Twitters was a fa- 
vorite with some, and I lost a promised, but I am 
persuaded, a never-written set of verses, because I 
wouldn’t hear of Caws. Then again, it seemed to me 
that Ripples sounded a trifle uppish on the part of 
youthful poets, and Croaks, I simply wouldn’t enter- 
tain the idea of ; for there’s no croaking in the verses, 
I assure you. So in the end it became ^ Chirps, edited 
by Jack Sparrow.’ ” 

Graycote, who greatly admired South’s effort to put 
his guests at ease, wondered they had not called it 
School Songs, but was taken to task by Jack for his 
want of originality. However, when South found his 
way to the little piano, and the chirping began in real 
earnest, the heir of Graycote was fully convinced that 
Warblings would have been a far more appropriate 
title for the book than Chirps, notwithstanding the 
fact that a few of the songs were of a decidedly humor- 
ous nature. 

Jack, taking care to select songs with easy and 
catching choruses, sang himself hoarse, and was almost 
on the point of excusing himself from further chirp- 
ing, when Graycote — for the sixth time — demanded 

an encore. 

9 


126 


JACK SOUTH 


“ Why, John, this is the very stupidest one of the 
whole collection,” South remonstrated. 

“ I’m sure that I speak for the company when I say 
that they long to hear it again,” replied Graycofe. 

' Murmurs from Davison and Gidlow corroborated 
the statement, and Jack once more began what he had 
previously warned his guests was a — 

VILLANELLE. 

Three wee birds on the apple bough; 

Mother low-flying o’er fallow and field — 

“ Why are ye chirping, babies, now ? ” 

Field that hath lain under harrow and plough, 

Mother bird knows rich food will yield 
For her three wee birds on the apple bough. 

“ May sun-sweet showers your seeds endow. 

And O, may the leaves my darlings shield — 

Why are ye chirping, babies, now ? ” 

“ A month ago for these dainties how 

Had ye fared when frost the soil had sealed. 

My three wee birds on the apple bough ? ” 

“ Must I fly to the field of the grazing cow ? 

Not yet is the wound of hunger healed? — 

Why are ye chirping, babies, now ? ” 

“ For supper ’tis all I may allow,” 

Yet three little mouths for more appealed — 

Three wee birds on the apple bough — 

“ Why are ye chirping, babies, now ? ” 

‘'Quite sure you don’t mean four birds. Jack?” 
called out Dr. South from the doorway. He had been 
standing there for a minute or so, before entering. 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 127 

O dad! ” cried Jack, turning his bright face from the 
piano, “ just as if we could want more when all this 
is left — pointing to the table. But Fm so glad 
you're come; do sing something, there's a good old 
dad I " Dr. South, however, was giving a kindly greet- 
ing to his son’s guests and expressing his fears that 
they had fared worse than the birds. 

‘‘We are chirping our satisfaction and thankful- 
ness, Dr. South,” said Graycote, “ and all we want 
at this moment is more music.” 

“Yes, dad,” put in Jack, “what will you sing?” 
But the Doctor had flown to the door, followed, how- 
ever, by Jack clinging to the tail of his coat. 

“ I have jumped from the drawing-room frying-pan 
into the fire of the Jacobin,” said the Doctor, with 
huge enjoyment of the fun. “ But what do you say 
to a compromise? By standing at the top of the 
stairs, and having your door and the door of the 
drawing-room left open, think you both parties will 
be satisfied. Jack?” 

“What a joke,” exclaimed Jack; “why then, dad, 
you can have two accompaniments going.” 

But this was too much, the doctor declared, laugh- 
ingly; and eventually he was released on the promise 
to return an hour later. 

Jack following his father’s conduct in all things, 
then declared that he would not give his guests more 
than enough, even of good things. 

“ You except the peaches, it seems,” said Graycote, 


128 


JACK SOUTH 


as Jack began to hand round the fruit; “ but then you 
have already given us your views in regard to ripe 
fruit. O, you want to clear the tabfe; allow me to 
help you ! ’’ 

We must have a rubber of whist, John. We 
needn’t bother the servants, you know ; all these things 
can be piled on the table outside, except the fruit, 
John! bring those apricots back again,” Jack shouted 
as Graycote flew off with the first thing that came 
to his hand. 


“ What are trumps I ” asked the cheery Doctor, com- 
ing into the Bin as the lads were finishing their last 
game. 

“Clubs!” said Jack, with a significant look at his 
father, fully understood by the latter. 

“So I perceive,” he replied; “well, well, every 
card has the chance of becoming a trump at some 
jtime or other.” 

The last cards were thrown down, and it was de- 
clared that Mr. Graycote and Davison had the odd 
trick. 

“ Spades have been trumps most of the evening, I 
think,” said Jack, looking at his father again. 

The Doctor nodded pleasantly at this enigmatical 
statement. 

“ We have only won by one point,” Graycote de- 
clared. 

“ The point is that you have won, John ; we con- 


A FEAST OF RECONCILIATION 129 

gratulate you, don’t we Johnny?” Johnny (who had 
been instructed in every move by one or other of the 
players), without penetrating the hidden meaning of 
these various statements, responded heartily. 

But both Davison and Gidlow began to be fearful 
of the time of night, and to show some anxiety about 
getting home. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE DIMMING OF THE DIAMOND 


“A youth to whom was given 
So much of Earth, so much of Heaven.” 

— Wordsworth. 

During those summer holidays the four Jacks met 
frequently; when both South and Davison returned to 
school, John Graycote continued to take occasional 
kindly notice of Johnny Gidlow, until the latter ceased 
to work at the Hall and passed into Dr. South’s serv- 
ices. 

Jack South’s letters were regular but short. Gray- 
cote found them painful reading, sometimes. The fol- 
lowing, received late in November, made him very un- 
happy : 

“My dear John, — Just about a month to breaking-up day! 
Jolly glad, I tell you. Feel awfully ‘broken-up’ myself. Have 
just had my second birching this term! Tell you all about it 
when I see you. Afraid my report will be precious bad. Better 
luck next year. Shall keep my pecker up. Am chock full of 
music in spite of everything. And you know Tm always yours 
affectionately — Jack South.” 

This, however, was the note that gave Graycote 
a fit of the deepest dejection, and caused such con- 
sternation at the Hall. 


130 


THE DIMMING OF THE DIAMOND 131 

My dear John , — 

“Dad has just written me an awful letter. He and mother 
and sisters are starting for Mentone the day after to-morrow 
— as perhaps you know. I am to stop here for Christmas. 
Beastly hard lines — isn’t it? Only two other chaps with me. 
Of course it’s for punishment, and no doubt I deserve it. Sorry 
to miss you, John — and Christmas and — well, everything worth 
having. Will write you a long letter soon. 

“ Affectionately yours, 

“Jack South.” 

Lady Graycote herself took the matter in hand. 
Calling upon Mrs. South, her ladyship declared that 
Jack's absence would spoil not only her son's Christ- 
mas, but her own as well. Mrs. South could only 
appeal to her husband, and for nearly an hour and a 
half Lady Graycote engaged in a smart tussle with the 
Doctor. In the end, she won her point. Jack was 
to be her guest during the Christmas holidays. 

The truth was that, counting upon Jack's bright 
presence and his many gifts. Lady Graycote had in- 
vited a larger house party for Christmas than she had 
ever ventured to entertain before. She was not a 
good hostess, and she knew it. Jack's absence would 
have upset all her plans. The boy was equal in ability 
to a professional musician, or a drawing-room enter- 
tainer, and of course he did not ask for fees. 

Arrived at Graycote Hall, the ecstatic Jack enjoyed 
himself amazingly. And as a performer he surpassed 
himself. During the past term he had learned much 
new music, had assisted at many concerts and dramatic 


132 


JACK SOUTH 


entertainments, and his repertoire was at once fasci- 
nating and fresh. For four wee'ks Jack lived in an 
atmosphere of petting and applause, of luxury and 
self-indulgence. The last week in January found 
him back at school — exhausted both in mind and 
body. 

Fresh trials and new forms of temptation awaited 
him. A bazaar on a particularly large and magnifi- 
cent scale was to be held in the Town Hall of the 
county town in Easter week, and the committee had 
already obtained the consent of the head-master to 
the appearance of Jack and two or three of the best 
singers belonging to the school choir. Fortunately 
for the committee, the object of the bazaar com- 
mended itself greatly to Dr. Higham, and the fact 
that, though there was a week’s holiday, his boys did 
not go home at Easter made the matter quite practi- 
cal. Otherwise the Doctor would have hesitated in 
giving his consent. He was beginning to realise that 
for some time past there had been too much music 
and too many stage entertainments in his school. His 
assistant masters seemed about equally divided on the 
general question, according to their individual tastes 
and temperaments, and in particular cases — Jack’s 
own was the principal one — the evidence was con- 
flicting. Of the two men who had most to do with 
him, one was entirely satisfied both with his conduct 
and his work; the other, a singularly unmusical per- 
son, complained bitterly of both and had forestalled 


THE DIMMING OF THE DIAMOND . 133 

the regular school report by answering a confidential 
letter from Dr. South at great length. He gave it 
as his opinion that the lad was being gradually ruined. 

So many times during the last month had Jack been 
told that he was. a genius — a poet and musician rolled 
in one — an actor of the greatest promise — that he 
would not have been a child of Adam if he had not 
been affected by such wholesale adulation. A duchess 
had caressed him; the heir to a dukedom had slapped 
him on the back and called him a rattling good fellow 
and equal to Grossmith; young ladies had asked him 
for his photograph and autograph ; staid old gentlemen 
had, at parting, tipped him with sovereigns; Lady 
Graycote had begged him to regard her as his mother. 
Invitations had been given him by people of high 
position; all sorts of tempting offers for the summer 
holidays had been held out to him; men who knew 
their way behind the scenes of London theatres, 
prophesied for him a career of glory. 

Yet the lad was sick at heart. Twice a week came 
loving little letters from his own mother, and each 
affectionate missive meant a heart-pang. Though she 
never reproached him, he knew that he had disap- 
pointed her. Short sharp notes came from his father 
— notes chiefly consisting of questions that Jack found 
hard to answer satisfactorily. 

Six months ago how different everything had been ! 
Music-mad even then, as he had admitted to his friend 
John Graycote ; yet, where in the whole world of boys 


134 


JACK SOUTH 


could have been found a happier one! What a per- 
fect understanding there had always been between 
father and son! Boated upon by mother and sisters, 
Jack had taken no advantage of their affection. From 
his babyhood he had been bright, active, alert and 
loving. Music had been with him always. Sweetly 
and jubilantly he sang before he could articulate. 
Melodies he knew long before he was acquainted 
with the alphabet. He had gone to school unusually 
early, partly because his parents saw that his abilities 
were in advance of his years ; partly because the Doctor 
found it hard to punish his one boy for faults that 
could not be, and were not, passed over. But it 
was only lately that Jack had missed the sobriquet 
his father gave him at the age of two — ‘‘ My sunny 
sonny.” 

The term began badly. An altercation between the 
boy and his master — the unmusical one, Mr. Wrupton 
— made Jack mutinous. With considerable skill, an- 
other master — Mr. Bray, a musical enthusiast — 
made peace. It was soon evident, however, that Jack 
could not, or would not, work. Reports of the elabor- 
ate preparations for the bazaar began to pour in. Six 
boys, with South at their head, were chosen to take 
the part of troubadours of the thirteenth century, and 
one morning a tailor arrived from town to measure 
them for their costumes of scarlet and gold lace! 

As time went oh, the musical schemes of the Bazaar 
Committee grew more ambitious. Why should not 


THE DIMMING OF THE DIAMOND 135 

the boys of Beechwood School perform one of their 
famous operettas? Why should not the whole choir 
take part in the concerts ? And why should not Master 
Jack South entertain the audience as (so the Com- 
mittee understood from some of the patronesses of the 
bazaar) he had so lately entertained a distinguished 
party at Graycote Hall for so many consecutive nights ? 
Was not the object of the bazaar (the local hospital) 
one of the worthiest possible? 

The musical Mr. Bray himself, at length became 
alarmed. Jack, the sturdy and hearty, was growing- 
pale. Signs of nervousness, restlessness and great 
irritability were beginning to show themselves; and 
long before the end of March the boy was smarting 
under a severe birching, for what the disgusted Mr. 
Wrupton called ‘‘ incorrigible laziness and bare-faced 
insolence.’’ 

Sleeplessness now began to afflict the tortured lad, 
and on Palm Sunday morning he fainted as he stood 
in the choir-stalls chanting the Psalms. He soon re- 
covered, but Dr. Higham insisted upon his remaining 
in the sick-room for a day or two. It may be that 
deliverance from Mr. Wrupton effected his cure. 
Work ceased on Maundy Thursday, and Jack was 
himself again. When Easter came, he closed the 
door of his soul upon the immediate past. The pres- 
ent was radiant with rose and gold. 


CHAPTER XII 


ANXIETY 

“ Man hath two attendant angels ever waiting at his side, 

One to warm him when he darkleth, and rebuke him if he stray ; 
One to leave him to his nature, and so let him go his way.” 

Sitting at the open windows of their lodgings at 
Mentone, the South family talked of Jack. A letter 
from him and a newspaper had arrived by the second 
post. 

The letter was short, but the newspaper report of the 
bazaar proceedings was lengthy enough, and both 
mother and father read it with mixed feelings. An 
entire column was given to the description and praise 
of Jack South’s acting and dancing. 

‘‘ It is certain,” ran the report, that a more gifted 
boy than Master South has never appeared in our 
midst. The young gentleman is not yet fifteen years 
of age, but he is already a brilliant player — not only 
of the pianoforte, but of stringed instruments of every 
description. His voice is a contralto of wonderful 
purity and strength and of quite extraordinary range. 
Nothing in the way of acting comes amiss to him. 
As a boy troubadour of the thirteenth century, singing 
the quaint and pathetic music of the period, he took the 
136 


ANXIETY 


137 


immense afternoon audiences by storm; but in the op- 
eratic scenes given by the boys of Beechwood School, 
he surpassed himself in the passionate intensity of his 
acting as well as of his singing. This left us scarcely 
prepared for his successes in the lighter parts he con- 
tributed to the evening performances. As an English 
boy-clown or a French pierrot, he was equally mirth- 
provoking; but never perhaps during the four days 
of the bazaar did he achieve a greater triumph than 
in the drawing-room entertainments of Thursday and 
Friday afternoon. Not Mr. Corney Grain himself 
could have given us more genuine enjoyment. With- 
out stage costume or accessories, clad like an ordinary 
schoolboy in Eton suit and turn-down collar, he took 
sole possession of the stage and amused a large and 
distinguished audience for nearly an hour and a half 
each day.” 

Dr. South frowned heavily when he reached this 
part of the report, but, when casting his eye down the 
column, he came upon a minute description of his 
son’s personal charms, he tore the paper into strips. 

Jack’s father was greatly harassed. His wife’s 
health was causing him anxiety, and much as he longed 
to be back in England, he could see no prospect of 
their return until June or July. His religious diffi- 
culties had lately increased to such a degree that, if he 
had been asked, he would have hesitated to call himself 
a member of the Church of England. He had been 
instructed that when abroad it was his duty to hear 


138 


JACK SOUTH 


Mass in churches of the Roman Obedience,” though 
to do so in England would be a mortal sin of schism. 
The direction vexed and puzzled him. Moreover, he 
was unable to approach the sacraments without having 
recourse to an Anglican chaplain. 

Correspondence on these and sundry other points 
with his old friend and confessor. Father Hunton, had 
become strangely and suddenly unsatisfactory. Was 
it possible, the Doctor asked himself a hundred times 
a day — was it possible that Hunton himself had diffi- 
culties ? 

And now there was this growing trouble concerning 
Jack. Of course the boy must leave Beech wood; but 
then, where ought he to be sent? That change of 
faith that seoned to the father to be getting more and 
more within the range of probabilities would neces- 
sarily entail a change of school for his son. There 
seemed to be nothing for it but to wait. And, in the 
meantime. Jack was in danger. 

Another matter that was giving Dr. South some 
anxiety was Father Hunton's apparent unwillingness 
to receive Johnny Gidlow into his Choir-school at 
Cowpool. It was not that he actually refused the boy, 
or thought him an unsuitable subject; but the old cler- 
gyman, for some unexplained reason, wished to delay 
the matter — indefinitely, as it seemed to Dr. South. 
Meanwhile Johnny himself had left Graycote Grange 
and was for the present attending an old established 
Grammar School in a littk town about three miles 


ANXIETY 


139 


off, leaving his own house every morning and return- 
ing in the evening. The arrangement was working 
fairly well, and for some time past the Doctor had re- 
ceived most satisfactory monthly reports of Johnny’s 
progress and conduct. 

“ You would hardly recognize our little friend 
Johnny,” Graycote had said to Jack in a recent letter: 
‘‘Not that he isn’t the same simple, respectful boy he 
always was; but now that he has exchanged his cor- 
duroys for a well-fitting Norfolk suit, he looks the 
equal of any of us. I hear that your father is making 
an experiment with this little lad, and, though my 
father is inclined to laugh at it, I fancy it will succeed. 
Dr. South took him up just in time — when he was 
fresh and unspoiled. Mr. Burton is, of course, very 
angry; the more so for Johnny’s prospect of going to 
Cowpool. My mother and I are greatly interested in 
the experiment. When will the four Jacks meet 
again? There’s a horrid possibility of our going on 
a visit to Scotland in the month of August. Fancy 
my missing you for a whole month! However, I 
won’t anticipate, for, though father likes the idea of 
being there for the twelfth, my mother has not yet 
made up her mind. And you know I don’t want to 
shoot grouse.” 

John Graycote wrote a long letter to his friend 
every fortnight, but was quite content with such 
scrappy answers as Jack found time to scribble. 

“ I have written to Jack of Hearts,” he said in one 


140 


JACK SOUTH 


of these jerky little sheets. So glad to hear what 
you tell me of him. My father is delighted with the 
way Johnny takes to his lessons. O si sic omnes, I 
am in disgrace with the dear old Dad — again. 
There's something wrong with me, somehow. Can’t 
work a bit. But I’ll be hanged if I don’t try to pull 
myself together for the rest of the term. Yes, you’re 
right. That bazaar business did upset me. Espe- 
cially the newspaper part.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


FOR MOTHER^S SAKE 
“There is none 

In all this cold and hollow world, no fount 
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within 
A mother’s heart.” 

Jack of Diamonds was up ” before the Head 
Master. 

“ But for the fact of your mother’s bad health and 
the absence of your father from England, I should 
certainly expel you, South.” 

Jack turned pale and looked at Dr. Higham with 
alarm. 

‘‘ Hitherto you have had a good friend in Mr. Bray; 
now, however, even he cannot defend your persistent 
idleness and insubordination.” 

The boy reflected that he had committed a capital 
error in giving cheek ” to, and not preparing his les- 
sons for, Mr. Bray. 

“ During the last year you have changed in the 
most unaccountable way. Indeed, South, you are not 
the same boy at all. You are giving trouble to every- 
body, and your influence and example are as bad as they 
can be — in one direction, at least; that of making 
others as lazy and mutinous as yourself. Hitherto, 


142 


JACK SOUTH 


flogging has failed to correct you — perhaps because 
it was too light and too seldom inflicted.” 

(Jack little knew that the Doctor himself had always 
given orders that the strokes were to be few and light. 
“ He is a nervous highly-strung lad,” the good man 
had explained, “ and feels pain more acutely than the 
average boy. It is the disgrace of a whipping I want 
him to feel, rather than the actual smart of it.”) 

Jack’s face became pinched and drawn as the Doctor 
went on speaking very clearly, very slowly and sol- 
emnly. 

No mistaken kindness of this sort will be shown 
you in the future. At the end of morning schools, I 
shall myself give you the maximum punishment al- 
lowed by the rules of this school for a boy of your age. 
You may go now; but let me add — the birching will 
be only a part of your punishment.” 

Dr. Higham had spoken very calmly — even coldly ; 
but when Jack left the room trembling in every limb, 
and with blanched cheeks and a beating heart — the 
old man showed considerable agitation. 

God help me, and the lad also,” he murmured to 
himself ; ‘‘ it may be that I am far more blameable 
than he is. I ought to have stopped that musical 
nonsense long ago. And yet — with talents like his, 
with an artistic temperament like his, with excep- 
tional gifts such as he possesses — what is one to do ! 
No power on earth could stop the natural flow of 
poetry and music in that boy’s soul. Can he help 


FOR MOTHER’S SAKE 


143 


himself in the matter? If not, why am I punishing 
him ? Is his genius God-given — or is it not ? Who 
is sufficient for these things! As a clergyman of the 
Church of England, I ought to have some knowledge 
of the human heart ; but I have not. I can count upon 
the fingers of one hand all the confessions I have 
heard since my ordination — nearly fifty years ago. 
As a Doctor of Divinity, I ought to have some knowl- 
edge of theology; but I have not. For all these years 
I have been preaching, and yet until lately I never 
felt my need of the one science it is my duty to be 
familiar with. The most trifling case of conscience 
perplexes me. One complexity of character in my 
subjects puzzles me. Anything like an abnormal case 
— the present, for instance — throws me into a state 
of alarm bordering upon distraction.” 


In the meantime. Jack, sitting in class, was debating 
with himself as to whether he would run away before, 
or after the flogging. Knowing the boy was under 
sentence, his master passed him over altogether. 
Knowing too, what Jack himself could only surmise, 
that the severest punishment would follow the flog- 
ging, Mr. Wrupton felt a great pity for his unhappy 
pupil ; for it had been settled that South was to be put 
into a lower form, and that he was not to be allowed 
to indulge in any kind of singing or playing for the 
rest of the term. He was even to be deprived of his 
place in the choir, for a time at least. He guessed 


144 


JACK SOUTH 


that one or other of these penalties was in reserve 
for him, though all Dr. Higham had said was : ‘‘ The 

birching will be only a part of your punishment.” 

The entire business had come about so suddenly. 
This morning he could take counsel of no one. Not 
a boy in the school was so popular as Jack. He num- 
bered his particular friends by the score, but his closest 
chum was Willie Phyler. 

I can’t go without saying a word to Willie,” he 
was thinking, ‘‘ and I can’t see him before the end of 
schools. There’ll hardly be a minute’s interval be- 
tween the end of schools and the swishing. Well, 
Higham shall wollop me — for the last time ! ” 


When the flogging was over, and Jack was making 
a desperate effort to suppress the sobs that would not 
be suppressed. Dr. Higham remarked in a tone that 
was almost gentle : — “ I would rather you did not go 
to the playground before dinner. If you care to go 
to your dormitory, you may do so.” 

Jack made no answer. He was incapable of speech 
at that moment, and very gladly he went to his cubicle 
and drew the curtains, and threw himself on his bed. 

Half an hour later, the school-matron came to his 
bedside with a tray nicely arranged with her own 
hands. On the plate lay a letter bearing the Mentone 
post-mark. The good woman spoke very few words, 
but they were altogether kind, and then she left the 
boy with his dinner and his letter. 


FOR MOTHER’S SAKE 


145 


Jack recognised his mother’s handwriting and im- 
mediately tore open the envelope. This is what he 
read : — 

” My darling boy , — 

It is more than a week since I heard from you, and I 
am getting so anxious about you. Your last letter was shorter 
than usual and told me nothing I most wanted to know. Is 
my dearest boy ill or unhappy? Do write this very day, my 
darling. I should so like to know if you have been to con- 
fession this term. You should not wait for the chaplain to sug- 
gest it. You know, dear, that at a school like Beech wood they 
have to be so very careful, for only a very small percentage of 
the parents of your school-mates believe in confession. And of 
those who believe in it (so the Church Trumpet says) an ex- 
ceedingly small proportion practise it. My darling, I am pining 
to come to you, but both your father and the doctor here 
declare that I must not return to England until July. Wfe are 
thinking of going to Italy for a month or so, but I will write 
again when the matter is fixed and settled. You would make 
me better, my darling, if you could — would you not? Well, to 
hear from you that you are well and happy, will relieve me of 
much anxiety, and help me to improve in health very much. 
May God protect and bless you, my darling boy. 

• “Your Loving Mother.” 

Jack read the letter over four or five times. Then 
with a sudden cry, he spread it out on his pillow, laid 
his cheek and lips upon it and closed his eyes. 

Was that the bell for evening preparation? It 
could not be ! Jack lay and listened. He had not slept 
— of that he was sure, and yet he had scarcely been 
awake. He aroused himself now to look at his watch. 
Yes, it was six o’clock ! On his pillow lay the letter — 
blotted as if it had been rained upon. By his bedside 


146 


JACK SOUTH 


was the tray. He was very hungry now, very cold 
and stiff and — sore. Without hesitation Jack arose 
and attacked — not the dinner that had been brought 
to him hours ago, but a fresh repast, evidently laid 
there lately ; a sort of tea-dinner ! So the matron had 
been a second time! Was it she who bent over him, 
and not — ? but all that was a dream, of course. 

Happen what might he would not run away. If for 
the moment he could not relieve his mother’s anxiety, 
at any rate he would not increase it. And he would 
go to confession as soon as possible, much as he 
dreaded so very rare and formal an exercise. 

Confession in this Protestant, high-church school 
was not an easy business, and there were only two or 
three boys who ever availed themselves of the Chap- 
lain’s services in this matter. It meant several days 
of preparation and the writing of a catalogue of faults 
— all the longer because anything like regular or fre- 
quent confession was strongly deprecated. For the 
past two years Jack bad knelt at his confessor’s feet 
once a term. 


CHAPTER XIV 


FLOW AND EBB 

“ Ydelnes, that is the gate of all harmes. 

An ydil man is like an hous that hath noone walles; 

The develes may entre on every syde.” 

— Chaucer. 

Whatever may have been the cause, Jack^s life be- 
came steadier. From that memorable day until the 
end of the term, the boy tried to work, and he fre- 
quently succeeded. 

‘‘ South is not capable of steady work,'’ his new 
master said to the Head. “Of that I am sure. He 
is trying hard, and of course I am satisfied. It is the 
effort I insist upon. I watch him closely at prepara- 
tion. He begins well always; after a little while, 
however, I can see that he is mooning. Then he 
catches my eye and sets to work afresh. Unfortunate- 
ly, the lad is an artist.” 

“ Unfortunately? ” asked Dr. Higham with a smile. 

“ Well, Sir, I mean unfortunately as regards my- 
self and his work.” 

“ There ought to be some method of dealing with 
abnormal boys,” said the Head musingly, “ but I con- 
fess that such cases puzzle me. It would be monstrous 

147 


148 


JACK SOUTH 


of course to blame a boy for his possession of excep- 
tional gifts. South’s talents were given him by the 
Almighty — for some good purpose, no doubt. 
Poetry and music are great arts, and ought to be 
held in esteem. It’s — it’s very puzzling.” 

Jack’s chums condoled with him daily on his being 
deprived of all musical recreation. He pleaded hard 
for permission to retain his guitar, but Dr. Higham 
would not consent. After some correspondence with 
Dr. South, Jack was allowed one half-hour’s violin 
practice daily. A few weeks later, he was permitted 
to take his old place in the choir. For these small 
musical mercies, the boy showed much gratitude. 

July brought great heat, and Jack found it harder 
than ever to keep up a show of work; but a word of 
encouragement, spoken at the right moment, helped 
him much. If it were not so near the end of the 
term, I should send you up to your old form,” his 
master said. As, however, the holidays are so 
close, it is not worth while making any change.’^ 

The coming vacation was now Jack’s big distrac- 
tion. A thousand schemes for the spending of it were 
in his mind, and in all his plans music took a first place. 
The marriage of voice and lute should begin in the 
railway train that took him from Beechwood. And 
for' seven jolly weeks there would be no restriction 
upon either carolling or tootling! 

In the cricket pauses of long holiday afternoons. 
Jack’s friends crowded about him, and tried to get 


FLOW AND EBB 


149 

him to make promises of visits during those joyous 
weeks — now close at hand. 

It’s a beastly shame to divide us,” Willie Phyler 
declared. “ How can you get on without your faith- 
ful soprano ? ” 

‘‘And wjiat about your faithful mezzos?” Jimmy 
White demanded. “ Where and how will you make 
up your quartette without us ? ” 

“Jack doesn’t want a quartette. Didn’t he sing a 
part-song all by himself at the bazaar? ” asked Freddy 
Fisher, “ and isn’t he always a musical host in him- 
self?” 

“ I say ! ” exclaimed Willie Phyler suddenly, “ we 
four chaps might have no end of a lark going home. 
We’ve all got our troubadour dresses and guitars — 
haven’t we? Well, what’s to hinder our giving open- 
air performances en route?'' 

Jack leapt into the air for sheer delight. The rest 
began to caper as if they were suddenly afflicted with 
St. Vitas’s Dance. 

“ Why didn't you think of it before ! ” shouted 
South, making a rush at Phyler. “ You giddy little 
mule — it’s — it’s a spiffing idea ! ” 

The group of lads might have discovered a new 
treasure island, so ecstatically excited were they over 
the suggested escapade. And when it was Jack’s 
turn to go to the wicket, for perhaps the first time in 
his life he left the pavilion reluctantly. A few min- 
utes later he was “ out for a duck.” 


CHAPTER XV 


MINSTREL BOYS 

Gaily the troubadour 
Touched his guitar. 

Everything favored the troubadours. Bank holi- 
day this year fell on the 4th of August, and so, 
although the 4th was the usual date of the breaking-up 
at Beech wood, the boys were to leave on the ist. 

Of course the original scheme had developed itself 
considerably; it now included nothing less than a fly- 
ing visit to Lacton-on-Sea. For it was impossible to 
travel south-west from Beechwood without passing 
through Thamesford Junction. Now, once at Thames- 
ford, one had a choice of going north, south, east, or 
west. A seaside place within easy distance was Lac- 
ton, and thither the quartette decided to go. 

I think we shall have money enough,” Jack said, 
‘‘ and once we get on the sands at Lacton, the cash 
will roll in of its own accord.” 

‘‘ Bank holiday will bring us a small fortune,” Willie 
Phyler declared. ‘‘Of course we shan’t pocket it. 
We can send it to that old hospital, or put up a 
stained glass window in the school chapel, or — or 
something.” 

150 


MINSTREL BOYS 


151 

Fat lot you know about stained-glass windows,” 
Freddy Fisher remarked. “ I don’t say we shan’t 
make money; fact, I’m pretty sure we shall. But 
don’t let’s count our chickens before they’re hatched. 
Besides, there’s our keep for three days clear. We 
mustn’t forget that a Sunday comes in.” 

Well, but, if we start our performance on Friday 
night and get a good haul on Saturday, we might per- 
haps get home for Sunday,” suggested Jimmy White, 
who, if the truth must be told, felt less comfortable 
about the entire proceeding than did his companions. 

‘‘ Rot ! ” exclaimed Jack. “ I wouldn’t miss bank 
holiday for anything. Think of the audience of trip- 
pers! Think of the crowded sands! Think of the 
gorgeous fun of the whole thing ! ” 

Jack was radiant. His mother — to whom he had 
written very regularly and affectionately since that 
woeful day of the birching and subsequent degrada- 
tion — was not to return to England until the follow- 
ing spring. His father was going to meet him at 
Graycote on the 5th, the day after bank holiday. Dr. 
South had several reasons for coming home, but it 
was his intention to return to Naples within the 
week, and to take with him Jack and his sisters. 

The four lads. Jack, Freddy, Jimmy and Willie, 
had made all their arrangements with the greatest 
secrecy. They had decided to wear crape masks, thus 
concealing the upper part of their faces. They had 
looked out the times of the trains to Lacton, selecting 


152 


JACK SOUTH 


one that started after the departure of all their school- 
fellows from Thamesford Junction. Whenf the ist of 
August arrived, they were singularly fortunate all 
along the line — both of the railway and their own 
project. 

Jack insisted upon going to one of the best hotels in 
Lacton. We are sure to be able to pay,” he urged, 
and if we have any difficulty, we can always tele- 
graph home — can’t we?” 

Jimmy White’s protests were laughed at. He was 
the youngest of the four, and his parents were of 
severe temperament. Of course. Jack was the leader. 
He was now within a month of fifteen, but if he, and 
not Jimmy had been the youngest, probably Jack 
would still have captained the team. 

At any other time the hotel people might have looked 
askance at the arrival of four schoolboys without any 
person in charge of them; but as their luggage was 
extensive — they had brought several changes of 
theatrical costume — and as Jack explained at once 
that they were only staying for a night or two, they 
were shown to four separate rooms without demur. 
Moreover, they were all well dressed and well man- 
nered, and Jack’s face was honesty itself. 

After exploring Lacton and making their plans 
for the morrow, they dined at the table d'hote. Four 
more decorous boys in flawless Eton suits and snowy 
linen never sat down to dinner; yet they attracted at- 
tention, and became the subject of much speculation. 


MINSTREL BOYS 


153 


They sat together, but a lady on Jack’s left hand drew 
him out in no time, and long before the meal was fin- 
ished it was known that the four boys would give an 
entertainment that evening in the big drawing-room. 

‘‘ It was very jolly, of course,” said Jack the next 
morning, ‘‘ but it brought in no cash. One can’t send 
round the hat in a drawing-room. But to-day’s Sat- 
urday, and the trippers are already trying to come in. 
I vote we dress, and start out at once.” 

During the morning they received more attention 
than coppers, more chaff than coin. They had many 
rivals, for the beach at Lacton was open to all com- 
ers, and the quartette of troubadours began to wonder 
if their refined music would successfully compete with 
the ‘‘ nigger ” melodies and music-hall songs of the 
itinerant musicians that thronged the sands. Some of 
these black-faced gentlemen were evidently hostile and 
shouted insulting questions after the lads. One of 
these questions, “Does your mother know y’re out?” 
hurt Jack a good deal. His mother did not know, and 
he hoped she never would. 

Saturday afternoon brought in thousands of excur- 
sionists, and business began to be brisk. Jack man- 
aged his little troupe with great skill. He soon saw 
where the more refined sections of the big crowd were 
wont to congregate, and there he selected his pitch for 
the afternoon. He had scarcely done so, when two 
blackguardly-looking men, one with a harp, the other 


154 


JACK SOUTH 


with a violin, elbowed their way through the crowd 
and began to dispute his possession. Jack tried to 
chaff them good-humoredly, but they were angry 
and abusive, and began to heap filthy imprecations 
upon the heads of the lads they described as ‘‘ young 
toffs what wanted to take the bread out o’ honest 
men’s mouths.” The crowd took the side of the boys, 
and the men retired vowing vengeance upon their 
rivals. 

It was a disconcerting beginning, but once Jack had 
taken the measure of his audience and started the 
performance, he forgot everything else. He began 
with a lively little gavotte arranged for four guitars, 
and then he gave them a popular ditty of the day, 
sung in his own best style. The applause was great, 
but when the four lads had joined in a part-song, 
there was enthusiasm among the crowd, and for some 
little time Jack and his companions were engaged in 
collecting the shower of coppers, that fell at their feet. 

It was a glorious afternoon, and the scene upon the 
beach was wonderfully bright and animated. The 
blue sea lapped lazily upon sands of gold; scores of 
laughing faces made a ring about the singers, and the 
boys themselves scarcely guessed how graceful and 
picturesque they looked in their mediaeval dress of 
scarlet silk. There was scarcely any breeze, and after 
a while the lads realised that in order to be heard and 
appreciated they had no need to strain their voices. 

But it was hard work, and after singing and playing 


MINSTREL BOYS 


155 


and dancing for two hours, they were glad to make 
their way to a restaurant close by, and refresh them- 
selves with tea and cakes. 

'‘Things are going swimmingly!” exclaimed Jack, 
as he and his chums took possession of a little table, 
and gave their orders. " These coppers are the worst 
part of the business.” He had been obliged to tie 
them up in a pocket handkerchief, for they were much 
too heavy for the pockets of his silken suit. “ Wish 
we could swop ’em for silver ! ” he exclaimed, looking 
round. 

" How many have you got ? ” asked an odd-looking 
man at his elbow. 

" Don’t know,” answered Jack untying the hand- 
kerchief. 

" There’s five bobs’ worth there,” said the man. " I 
can take that much if you want to get rid of ’em.” 

“Thanks, awfully!” exclaimed Jack, beginning to 
count the coppers. “ There’s threepence-halfpenny 
short of five shillings,” he added when he had piled the 
money in five little heaps. 

“ That’s all right,” said the man, laying down a five 
shilling piece. “ I heard you sing just now, and I’d no 
change. I always like plenty of coppers about me 
at holiday time. Saves silver, you know.” The man 
winked, rather unpleasantly Jack thought; “but,” he 
said to the others as the fellow withdrew, it’s jolly 
to be rid of those beastly pennies.” 

But when, four hours later, the weary, copper-laden 


JACK SOUTH 


156 

lads were preparing to leave the sands and return 
to their hotel that night, they were surprised to find 
the money-changer of the afternoon again at their 
elbow, fully prepared to give them shining silver pieces 
for their evening shower of pennies — amounting now 
to more than ten shillings! 


CHAPTER XVI 


AN UNEXPECTED INTERLUDE 

"The seeds of our own punishment are sown 
At the same time we commit sin.” 

— Heriod. 

Sunday morning saw the four young minstrels ly- 
ing late in bed. They were astonished to find them- 
selves so tired. They managed, however, to attend 
the 1 1 o’clock service close by, spending the remainder 
of the day rather lazily. All but Jack seemed a trifle 
dispirited; and even he drooped a little towards the 
late afternoon. They revived, however, after dinner, 
and before going to bed made elaborate plans for the 
morrow. 

The August Bank Holiday opened gloomily enough. 
Rain fell heavily in the early morning, and the boys 
felt glad that they had decided to appear that day 
in Pierrot costume, and not in the more costly scarlet 
silk. 

If the crowd had been great on Saturday, to-day 
it was overwhelming. It increased still more towards 
noon, when the weather began to clear. The after- 
noon was perfect. The lads did not return to their 
hotel for luncheon, but made a hearty meal at the 
restaurant they had visited on Saturday. 

157 


11 


158 JACK SOUTH 

I couldn’t stand this for many days together,” 
Jack said to the rest in an interval between two per- 
formances. Jingo! but it does take it out of a fel- 
low! rd give this load of coppers for a dip in the 
•sea ! ” 

‘‘ So would I,” said Willie Phyler, but I suppose 
it’s out of the question.” 

“ Quite,” decided Jack. “ The beggars are waiting 
for us to begin again — bother ’em ! ” 

“ See that fellow in the brown billy-cock, just on the 
outside edge?” whispered Freddy Fisher. “ Yes, the 
clean-shaven chap. Well, he’s been at every blessed 
performance we’ve given to-day.” 

“ Shows his appreciation of a good thing,” laughed 
Jack. “ Hope he’s stumped up. Well, what are we 
to give ’em next? ” 

“ I vote for that pantomime bit,” said Jimmy White. 
‘‘ It’ll give our throats a rest.” 

“Right!” exclaimed Jack. “Just the thing! 
Sharp’s the word.” 

Jack had just explained to the crowd the nature 
of the coming piece, when there was a sudden move- 
ment among the people; and two men appearing from 
opposite points of the big circle of sight-se^rs, stepped 
into the actor’s arena. For a moment the onlookers 
thought it was all part of the coming performance, 
but when one of the men — clean-shaven, and wear- 
ing a brown billy-cock hat laid a hand on Jack’s 
shoulder, and another on Willie Phyler’s, there was 


AN UNEXPECTED INTERLUDE 159 

a moment’s hush, and the inner ring of spectators dis- 
tinctly heard the detective’s words : ‘‘ I arrest you 

on the charge of passing bad money ! ” The second 
detective had already seized Freddy and Jimmy. 

The lads were dumfounded and looked at their 
captors in dismay. Jack made an effort to free him- 
self, hotly-demanding to know the reason of his arrest. 
The detective repeated what he had said before, but 
Jack scarcely heard a word. The crowd was press- 
ing in upon the boys and detectives, and cries arose on 
all sides. It soon became evident to the prisoners that 
they had many friends and that some of their late 
auditors were only too anxious to effect a rescue. 
Unfortunately, everybody was shouting and nobody 
was listening. Pushing the lads before them, the offi- 
cers tried now to force their way through the crowd, 
but they could make no headway through the phalanx 
of angry men in front of them; and Jack, taking ad- 
vantage of a big lurch on the part of the mob, man- 
aged to free himself, leaving however, a portion of 
the sleeve of his pierrot costume in the detective’s 
hand. Having his right hand free, the man now took 
a whistle from his pocket, and blew on it a long blast. 
At the height of the confusion three policemen came 
running up, parting the crowd in the very line of 
Jack’s attempted flight. Hold the lad fast, one of 
you! ” the detective called out; “the other two come 
here!” 

A great roar of indignation arose from the crowd. 


i6o JACK SOUTH 

and a sudden rush upon the second detective was made 
by some of the young men in the rear — its im- 
mediate effect being to free both Freddy Fisher and 
Jimmy White. The first officer now took a pair of 
handcuffs from his pocket, and snapped one on 
Willie’s right wrist, saying ‘‘ We’ll make sure of you 
at any rate.” Then the man blew a second blast on 
his whistle. 

The crowd had greatly increased in density, and a 
free fight seemed to be going on in every direction, 
while the crush and the noise and the heat grew un- 
bearable. 

More policemen came running up, and in a few 
minutes they had made a passage through the crowd 
and a circle round the detective and his one prisoner. 
Jack was in the grasp of a burly officer; in a short 
time Freddy and Jimmy were both seized, and the 
unhappy quartette was complete. Two more pairs 
of handcuffs were produced, and Jack soon found 
himself fastened to Willie Phyler by one hand and 
to Freddy Fisher by the other, Jimmy White being 
manacled to Willie’s left wrist. This being done, 
three or four policemen made a lane through the mob, 
and the fettered boys were hustled away from the 
sands by the two detectives. 

They had left a crowd on the beach only to be fol- 
lowed by another and a less sympathetic rabble in 
the streets. Sick with fear, and feeling their degrada- 
tion as only four such boys could feel it, they were 


AN UNEXPECTED INTERLUDE i6i 


now chaffed by a gang of street lads and idlers and 
pushed along the crowded thoroughfare amid cries 
of, “ They Ve got ’em on ! ” “ They’ve got ’em all 

on!” “ ’Ow does yer bracelets fit?” etc., etc. 

It was almost a relief to the unhappy lads to find 
themselves at last in the cells of the police station. 
Again and again on the dismal journey thither. Jack 
had implored the detectives to call a cab. When they 
refused, the frantic boy tugged at his handcuffs so 
violently that his wrists bled freely, and it was only 
when he found that he was hurting the lads he was 
fastened to that he desisted. 

Perhaps throughout England, four more miserable 
youngsters did not lie down that night, and try to 
sleep — thinking bitterly of the morrow. 


CHAPTER XVII 


ANOTHER NEWSPAPER REPORT 


I know not how to tell thee ! 

Shame rises in my face, and interrupts 
The story of my tongue ! ” 

— Otway. 

Dr. South having arrived at Graycote on the Tues- 
day after Bank Holiday in order to meet Jack, was 
astonished not to find his boy at home. “ I shall get 
there before lunch-time on Tuesday morning,’’ the 
lad had written, intimating that with his father’s 
leave he would spend Saturday, Sunday and Monday 
with his friend Willie Phyler — as indeed he did. 

It chanced that the Doctor had read his Tuesday 
paper rather superficially that morning. The long ac- 
counts of holiday proceedings had not interested him 
overmuch, and the thought of meeting his son was 
uppermost in his mind. But after his solitary luncheon 
he casually took up the paper again. It was not long 
before he came upon the following: 


EXTRAORDINARY PROCEEDINGS AT LACTON-ON- 
THE-SEA. 

“This popular sea-side resort was, yesterday, the scene of a 
remarkable incident which at one time threatened to lead to a 
most serious fracas between the police and the huge crowd 
that thronged the sands. For some time local detectives have 

162 


ANOTHER NEWSPAPER REPORT 163 

been on the track of a gang of coiners, and yesterday they ar- 
rested four lads who, it transpired, had been in the town since 
Friday last, posing on the sands and elsewhere as singers and 
actors, and who are now believed to be in the employ of the 
above mentioned gang. The two detectives who attempted the ar- 
rest found themselves quite unable to convey their prisoners to 
the police office, the sympathies of the mob being greatly excited 
in favor of the youngsters, whose acting and singing appear to 
have been much above the average. Eventually, with the aid 
of a small body of police, the lads were handcuffed together 
and taken to the station. They will be brought up to-morrow 
morning at the Town Hall on a charge of circulating bad money, 
and also of getting board and lodging by false pretences from 
the landlord of the Royal Hotel. Several arrests were subse- 
quently made of persons who attempted to rescue the prisoners 
from the hands of the detectives. The boys, who were clad in 
pierrot costume, are of gentlemanly manners and address, and 
the oldest of them cannot be more than fifteen, while the youngest 
is barely thirteen.” 

When Dr. vSouth had finished the paragraph he rose 
hastily and threw the paper on the floor. The next 
moment however he indignantly rejected the suspicion 
that had entered his mind. ‘‘ Jack may be erratic, but 
he is not vicious,’’ the father murmured to himself as 
he paced up and down his study. ‘‘ The lad may be 
lazy, but he is not base. I will not believe that my 
boy— 

The housemaid entered the room with a telegram. 

“To Dr. South, 

“ Graycote Grange, 

“ Graycote, 

“ Kinchester. 

“Have you a son named John Edward Philip, and has he just 
left Beechwood' School? 

“From Chief Constable, 

“ Lacton-on-the-Sea.” 


164 


JACK SOUTH 


Dr. South had to steady his right .hand with his 
left while he wrote the answer to the telegram. 

Half-an-hour later he was on his way to Lacton. 

When Dr. South left the train at Lacton Station, a 
local evening paper was being sold on the platform, 
and the nearly broken-hearted father bought and 
opened one in all haste. He soon found what he was 
looking for. 

The day after Bank Holiday had been a busy one at 
the Police Court, and the case of the boy-minstrels 
was taken last. 

“ Prisoners were remanded till Friday,” were the words Dr. 
South’s eyes fastened upon, and then — , “ Several gentlemen 
whose names did not transpire, but who are believed to be 
visitors staying at the Royal Hotel, offered bail for the pris- 
oners. The magistrates regretted that they could not accept bail 
in such a case, and the prisoners, who seemed to feel their 
position very acutely, were removed to the cells.” 

Happily, however, there was a sequel to this last 
paragraph : 

“ Before the Court rose, Mr. Benson, solicitor for the defence, 
made a second application for bail, urging that he had now a 
complete answer to the charges brought against his clients. 
The application was opposed by the police, but after some hes- 
itation the Mayor said they had decided to grant it if satisfactory 
sureties were forthcoming. Late that afternoon the accused were 
liberated and drove in a closed cab from the police-station to 
the Royal Hotel.” 

Dr. South himself lost no time in driving to the 
Royal Hotel. 


ANOTHER NEWSPAPER REPORT 165 

The landlord of the Royal Hotel gained much by 
the misfortune of the boys who had come to him as 
guests. By Wednesday afternoon the nearest rela- 
tions of all the lads had mustered in great force, and 
the hotel was crowded. It is needless to say that the 
landlord had already withdrawn the charge of fraud 
that the Monday’s arrest had led him to make. 

Which person concerned in the coming appearance 
at Friday’s Police Court was the most miserable it 
would be hard to say; but it is certain that the boys 
themselves suffered intensely. Their elders, who were 
in constant conference with the best solicitors in Lac- 
ton, were assured that there was absolutely no case 
at all, and that the police had made a stupendous 
blunder. 

Great as Dr. South’s own trouble was, he spent 
much time in trying to console Willie Phyler’s mother 
— the widow of a clergyman, and a lady of great re- 
finement and sensibility — who could not have shown 
greater distress if her boy had been charged with 
wilful murder. 

Seeing how greatly his son was suffering. Dr. South 
uttered not one word of reproach, and all that Jack 
could do when they were alone together was to fling 
himself into his father’s arms and sob so piteously that 
the Doctor felt forced to console rather than reprove. 

It was only at nightfall that the lads ventured to 
go out, and the days that intervened before their re- 


i66 JACK SOUTH 

appearance at the Police Court seemed like long 
months of agony. 

When Friday morning came, four cabs were drawn 
up before the Royal Hotel, and into one of these Jack 
followed his father. The lad felt very sick. In a few 
minutes he would again be a prisoner in the dock. 
Under what circumstances would his next ride be 
taken? Only last Friday morning he and his com- 
panions had watched a gang of prisoners alight from 
a prison van at Thamesford Junction — three men 
and a boy of about his own age, in convict dress, each 
attached by the right wrist to a long chain. Would 
he and his .chums find themselves that very day in a 
similar position? The length of his sentence scarcely 
troubled him. The one thought that made his heart 
throb wildly was the possibility of his being sent to 
prison, and the overwhelming trouble and lasting dis- 
grace this would bring upon those who loved him — 
to say nothing of the ruin he had brought upon his 
three companions and their respective families. 

Four trembling white-faced boys stood in the dock 
and pleaded ‘‘ not guilty.” The magistrate eyed them 
with surprise — Dr. South thought with sympathy. 
For the quartette now presented a very different ap- 
pearance to that of the strolling players of Tuesday 
morning — clad then in pierrot costume and with 
paint and powder only half-washed from their faces. 


ANOTHER NEWSPAPER REPORT 167 

To-day they were four young English gentlemen in 
Eton suits, looking unhappy, it is true, because they 
■had been naughty. But that they had been guilty 
of felony seemed absurd. 

They were not kept long in suspense. At the very 
beginning of the case the Chief Constable made a 
statement that rendered unnecessary the hearing of 
anything save the formal evidence. The police had 
been misled, he told the Court, by the terms of in- 
formation supplied to them from a distance. Itinerant 
musicians had been mentioned in the telegram, and as 
he had proofs that the accused had paid for various 
articles of food with counterfeit coin, he submitted 
that his men were justified in making the arrest. But 
that very morning the real culprits had been brought 
to Lacton in custody and would be charged forthwith. 

The Mayor said that he offered his congratulations 
both to the boys and to their friends. No suspicion 
of any kind attached itself to the lads, but he could not 
help thinking that they had given their relatives much 
pain by masquerading in public — he felt sure with- 
out the knowledge or consent of their parents. For 
this they had been severely punished, and he hoped 
that the events of the week would be a warning to 
them for the rest of their lives. 

Jack and his friends left the dock with burning 
cheeks. They could not yet leave the Court, since they 
were required to act as witnesses in the next case. 
Three of the four men who were now brought in. Jack 


JACK SOUTH 


1 68 

recognised at once. One was the fellow who had 
given him bad five-shilling pieces for the coppers ; the 
other two were the harp and violin players the lads 
had encountered on Saturday. The prisoners were 
committed for trial at the assizes. 

The same afternoon Dr. South and Jack left Lacton 
for Graycote, and the other young minstrels and their 
friends started for their respective homes. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A father’s sentence 

“There are a thousand joyous things in life, 

Which pass unheeded in a life of joy 
As thine hath been, till breezy sorrow conies 
To ruffle it; and daily duties paid 
Hardly at first, at length will bring repose 
To the sad mind that studies to perform them.” 

— Talfourd. 

A fortnight later, the quartette of minstrels — only- 
one of whom belongs to our Country Quartette (a 
complete account of Jack’s school-chums belongs to 
another history) — met again at the County town where 
the assizes were held. They were more than thankful 
for the shortness of the interval, for though they had 
nothing to fear for themselves from judge or jury, 
they exceedingly disliked the publicity of the affair 
and were all anxious that their Lacton freak should 
not come out in too great detail. They looked at one 
another a little sheepishly when they met in one of the 
waiting rooms of the Assize Court, and though they 
tried to laugh and chat, the attempt was not an all- 
round success. 

It was in fact a rather sad meeting. Subsequently 
they gave their evidence very intelligently and straight- 
forwardly, and had the satisfaction of seeing the real 
169 


170 


JACK SOUTH 


culprits sentenced to penal servitude ; but they certainly 
did not enjoy the cross-examination to which they 
were subjected by counsel for the defence who, nat- 
urally, made the most of the Lacton escapade. 

Jack had spent a depressing fortnight at Graycote. 
He was glad that the Graycotes themselves had gone 
to Scotland, and he was more than thankful to hear 
from Johnny Gidlow that Davison was spending his 
holidays, or at least the greater part of them, away 
from home. 

Dr. South went away nearly every morning and 
only returned for the evening dinner — not always 
for that. To Jack he seemed very anxious and wor- 
ried about a nurhber of things, but though his manner 
was kind, he said very little to his son, and if it had 
not been for Johnny Gidlow, that fortnight at home 
would have been drearier than it actually was. 

Johnny of Hearts, who had quite lately lost his 
father, was full of sympathy for his benefactor’s son. 
Like all the Graycote people, he knew all about the 
Lacton affair, like them also he was indignant at the 
treatment to which Jack and his friends had been sub- 
jected, and in his shy way the younger boy tried hard 
to make the other understand that everybody felt for 
him very much and that he had not lost an atom of 
the respect and esteem of the village folk. 

Jack was grateful for Johnny’s sympathy, and after 
a time it began to be a real comfort to him. Since 


A FATHER^S SENTENCE 


171 

his father’s death Gidlow had had the run of the 
Grange and was always at hand if South wished for 
his company. Very soon the two became inseparable, 
and Jack began to feel a great respect for the labor- 
er’s son, while the latter worshipped the older, better- 
born and more gifted lad with a worship that was 
half reverence and half gratitude. 

But, I say, Hearts, you mustn’t go on saying ' sir ’ 
to me, you know,” Jack had to insist. ‘‘To my father 
— yes, but not to me.” 

“Well, Master South — ” Gidlow would begin. 

“ Now that’s worse still. If anything could rile 
me more than ‘ sir ’ it would be that horrid ‘ master.’ 
No, call me Diamonds, or Jack, or anything you like.” 

So during that rather mournful fortnight the lads 
played a good deal of tennis, strolled down to the river 
for fishing or boating and practiced bowling with great 
regularity. Jack’s cricket had deteriorated alarmingly 
since last year, and he found his companion more than 
a match for him both in batting and bowling. 

“ Diamonds are bright, and so are you,” John Gray- 
cote had said to his old chum a year ago when the 
four Jacks had taken the names of cards; but ‘ Hearts ’ 
could not but notice the great change that had taken 
place in ‘ Diamonds.’ There was only one point in 
which the latter was at all like his old self, and that 
was in his invariable kindness to his humble friend. 
Johnny quite understood why the other never sang or 


172 


JACK SOUTH 

touched any instrument of music; but he marvelled 
greatly at the absence of that spirit of fun, that win- 
ning vivacity for which Jack had been so famous. 

Jack wondered that his father should be away so 
constantly. “ I suppose,’’ the boy said to himself more 
than once, ‘‘ he finds it too painful to be alone with 
me. I wonder if he’ll ever forgive me, and whether 
we shall ever again be to one another what we were 
before ? ” 

But the night after Jack returned from the Assizes, 
as he and his father were sitting together on the lawn, 
the boy quite suddenly seized the other’s hand and 
pressed it between his own hot palms, at the same 
time raising an appealing face to his father’s. 

What it is. Jack? ” 

The lad tried to speak, but all he could do was to 
clasp his father’s hand a little harder and choke. 

‘‘ I can’t feel — quite sure that — that you’ve for- 
given me, father,” he sobbed out after a time, and 
with great difficulty. 

Have no fear on that point, my boy,” said the 
Doctor. ‘‘ You are forgiven — fully. But there is a 
further point. Jack — is there not?” 

You mean my penance, father ? ” 

You’ve had punishment enough — of one kind, 
my poor lad. But I am anxious for your future. I 
want to give you an opportunity of reforming your- 
self. I had intended to take you back to Italy with 
me: I cannot do that now, for many reasons. Nor 


A FATHER’S SENTENCE 


m 


can I leave you here for the remainder of the holi- 
days. You will not return to Beechwood of course, 
and — well, there are circumstances that make it im- 
possible for me to choose another school for you at 
present. I have thought about the matter a great 
deal, Jack, and have talked it over with men of sense 
and experience. Shall I tell you what conclusion 
we have come to ? ” 

‘‘Do, please, father!” the boy explained with an 
anxious look. 

“ Well, we think you need an entire change of life 
— for a time, at least. You need a simpler, and at 
the same time a rougher and a harder life. You have 
been breathing an unwholesome atmosphere. Jack — 
that of gross flattery, adulation and self-indulgence. 
You need bracing and stimulating, physically and 
morally. I would put you under the care of a private 
tutor if I could find the right sort of man, but, for the 
present, I cannot. To-day I have visited a sort of 
high-class reformatory — ” 

“ Oh, father I ” the boy cried out. 

“ Don’t be alarmed. Jack. I am not going to send 
you there. I soon found that it was not an institution 
that suited your case. It is for criminal boys of good 
family and for those who have shown criminal ten- 
dencies. Thank God, my lad, naughty as you have 
been you are not a criminal.” 

Jack shivered, and his father led the way indoors. 

“No, I am going to put you to hard labor, Jack 
12 


174 


JACK SOUTH 

— for a time — on a farm of mine a long way from 
here. My tenant, Mr. Wilson, is a man I have the 
utmost confidence in. I have known him intimately 
for many years, long before you were born, my boy — ■ 
in fact since I myself was your age. We were born 
in the same village and played together as youngsters. 
The farm has been in our family for over a hundred 
years, and is of considerable size. Mr. Wilson has 
consented to take you on as cow-boy, and you are to 
be lodged as such. He will treat you, remember, just 
as if you were a lad working for wages; except that 
I give him leave to punish you in any way he thinks 
fit if you are idle or disobedient. You need not be 
afraid that he will be cruel. As I have said, I know 
the man thoroughly. He is a widower, and all his 
sons and daughters are married and settled. You will 
be simply one of many laborers, and when your day’s 
work is done you will be left to yourself a good deal ; 
but — ” Dr. South hesitated. What he thought was 
“ you will be too tired to get into mischief.” But, be- 
sides this, he had as a matter of fact made very special 
arrangements with Farmer Wilson as to the super- 
vision of Jack after hours. 

‘T had thought of forbidding you all music. Jack, 
but I have changed my mind about that. You may 
have your guitar, and I will send you regularly the 
papers and magazines you got at school. Take one 
or two books also, but let me know what they are. 


A FATHER’S SENTENCE 175 

And — well, I think that is all I have to say — ex- 
cept — ” 

Jack was looking out upon the lawn with eyes that 
did not see. 

The Doctor followed him to the window and took 
his hand. Suddenly the boy turned and flung his arms 
about his father’s neck. Then a certain hardness that 
seemed to have crept into the Doctor’s voice vanished 
as he said: “ Does it all seem very harsh, my boy? ” 

Jack could not answer. 

‘‘ If it does, dear lad, do try to think that I am doing 
it — not merely for your good, but, because — be- 
cause, my darling boy, I love you so much ! ” 

And though Jack felt that the penance would be a 
heavy one, he was comforted because he knew that he 
was forgiven. 


CHAPTER XIX 


SERVITUDE 

“There services are clock-like to be set 
Backward and forward, at their lord’s command.” 

— Ben Jonson. 

“ Imprisonment with hard labor ! ” 

This was the burden of Jack’s song every step of 
the three hours’ journey. And it did not change 
when he reached Mr. Wilson’s farm at Clemington. 

Mr. Wilson himself was a hard-looking and very 
taciturn man. 

“You are Dr. South’s lad — are you?” was his 
greeting when Jack met him in the farm-yard. He 
did not even shake hands. “ I’ll show you where 
you’ve got to sleep,” he said, making a gesture that 
seemed to mean, “ come this way.” Yet the farmer 
was going away from the house and in the direction 
of one of the barns. Jack followed. 

“ The youngest cow-lad always sleeps here,” said 
Mr. Wilson, when Jack had mounted a ladder and 
found himself in a loft that was really over one of 
the adjoining^ cow-sheds, though' approached 'from 
the barn. “You’re luggage has come. Better get 
into your working clothes now. We’re pretty busy 
to-day.” 


176 


SERVITUDE 


177 

Jack looked aghast, but said nothing. This indeed 
was penal servitude! 

He thought of the day and night he had spent in 
a cell at the police station ; even that was scarcely less 
inviting than this hay-loft. 

But the farmer had already vanished, and Jack must 
needs obey orders. The big portmanteau he found 
lying in the farm-house kitchen was very heavy, but 
he managed to drag it across the yard and up the 
step-ladder. It contained the special outfit his father 
had ordered and sent on in advance. 

His new clothes of corduroy and fustian were stiff 
as boards, and he thought the hob-nailed, iron-plated 
boots must be the very heaviest any mortal boy had 
ever worn. When he had laced them on, it seemed to 
him that they were only substitutes for ankle-irons. 
He tried to laugh as he listened to his own foot-fall 
on the boards; but as he looked round the cheerless, 
unfurnished loft and glanced at the low, hard-looking 
little bed, it was with difficulty he stifled a sob. 

It’s my own fault,” he said to himself a few min- 
utes later as, under the direction of a grinning rustic, 
he began to clean out one of the cow-sheds, ‘‘ my own 
fault altogether. I must try to bear it.” 

All that burning August day he worked manfully 
and well. He found his companions more trying than 
the labor — hard as it was. There were two or 
three lads of his own age, and these jeered at him 
when he blundered. The older hands were more re- 


178 


JACK SOUTH 


spectful, and several of them touched their hats when 
they met him — to his great confusion. One old man 
showed him how to hold his besom; another how to 
manipulate a muck-fork. Farmer Wilson was taci- 
turnity itself. 

Meals were trying times. Some five or six hands 
dined with Mr. Wilson, Jack and three dairymaids, 
in the kitchen. The food was coarse and solid, but 
plentiful. Conversation was local and personal — not 
to say heavy. Happily it was not worse: Farmer 
Wilson’s presence was a sufficient check. 

At twenty minutes past eight, after a supper of 
bread and cheese and table beer. Jack climbed heavily 
and wearily to his sleeping place. He did not try to 
check his grief now. It had taken the form of a great 
loneliness — the hardest thing to bear when one is 
young. No one who cared for him, no one who loved 
him was at hand! 

No one? ” It was as though the question had been 
whispered in his ear. When his storm of sorrow was 
spent he tried to pray. He had thrown himself on 
his bed to weep: now he rose and knelt beside it. 

But even as he knelt he almost fell asleep. Rising, 
he tried to unlace his boots, but the thick leather laces 
were in a knot. Throwing himself again upon the 
bed he fell asleep in his clothes. 


Jack awoke to the sound of sharp knocking below. 
Somebody was rapping the barn-door with a stick. 


SERVITUDE 


179 

Feeling stiff and cold and unrefreshed, the boy glanced 
at his watch. It was four o’clock. 

Look alive there ! ” It was the farmer’s morning 
greeting. 

I’m dressed, at any rate,” Jack said to himself. 

But where’s the water ? ” 

Neither basin nor jug was there, but Wash, I 
will,” he said aloud as he left the loft. 

“ Pump’s over yonder,” said the farmer who had 
overhead him. 

‘‘ Mayn’t I have a tub. Sir? ” Jack’s tone was plead- 
ing and conciliatory and the farmer hesitated. 

‘‘ You’ll have time for a dip in the river if you’re 
handy,” he said. You know what you’ve got to 
do?” 

Jack remembered that his first duty was to drive the 
cows from the meadows and then to help in the milk- 
ing. 

It was a brilliant morning, but running water is 
apt to be chilly at four a. m. Jack, however, enjoyed 
the cool silver shock of a plunge ” in the river and 
felt braced and refreshed. 

But long before breakfast was ready he felt faint 
and dizzy. His bungling over the milking provoked 
shouts of laughter, and one of the farm lads leeringly 
asked him if he’d ever seen a cow before. 

Penal servitude! Would this^weary round of pen- 
ance-labor ever cease? Would it always go on from 
four in the morning till breakfast at half-past six — 


i8o 


JACK SOUTH 


from breakfast till noon — from noon till sunset ! 
Would the only intervals be always filled up with 
meals of coarse food eaten in the company of un- 
washed and unsavory farm-hands! 

Saturday came without any change and with only 
the rest and refreshment of one poor hour of solitude 
after supper. But the hour had become a golden one. 
Jack spent it in song. To his great joy, violin as 
well as guitar had been sent after him. 

The nearness of Sunday made him happier than he 
had felt all week. Of course there would be work on 
the morrow — cows to be fetched, milking to be done, 
horses to be fed ; but there would be more leisure and 
more rest. And there would be church. He was 
wondering how he should dress. Might he venture to 
wear the tweed suit he had travelled in? It did not 
matter much, of course. Nobody knew him, and he 
knew nobody. He was Mr. Wilson’s new farm-lad; 
perhaps he ought to dress as such. Going to his port- 
manteau he turned over its contents. What was this 
coat of black frieze? No doubt, for Sunday wear. A 
second pair of boots, too ? They were nearly as heavy 
as the brogues he was wearing, but the hob-nails were 
not quite so big. Here, then, was his Sunday outfit. 
He could laugh a little over it now. It would be 
something to wear one of those big broad, schoolboy 
collars once again. 

Jack had made for himself a sort of divan close to 


SERVITUDE 


i8i 


the window of the loft, and the hay upon which he 
half reclined was soft and sweet-smelling. From his 
open window he could see across the well-kept farm- 
yard into the meadows. -The view was to the north- 
west, and the after-glow of a gorgeous sunset held the 
boy’s eyes as he toyed with his guitar and now and 
then broke into song. He never guessed that he had 
an audience; but three distinct groups of people were 
listening eagerly for every note of lute and voice. If 
only he had known, he might have given them some- 
thing worth the hearing. It was better that he did 
not know. He was singing for his own solace. 

But as the after-glow began to grow dimmer and 
the evening air cooler ; as “ the print of the first white 
star ” appeared in the darkening blue and a great hush 
at length held the whole country-side, Jack’^s music 
rang from the hay-loft with greater distinctness, and 
the listening groups pressed closer beneath the shadow 
of the barn. For now the boy was tearing from the 
strings of his guitar all the music of which it was 
capable — loud, lightsome and strong, but very sweet. 
Then rose his own ringing contralto voice, and the 
listeners quivered under the rush and shock of his song 
of the sea, every syllable of which was clear, distinct 
and melodious — 

“I will go back to the great sweet mother — 

Mother and lover of men, the Sea. 

I will go down to her, I, and none other. 

Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me- 
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast; 


JACK SOUTH 


182 


O fair white mother in days long past, — 

Born without sister, born without brother, — 

Let free my soul as thy soul is free.” 

His instrumental interludes were long — for the boy 
was thinking of Lacton and struggling with a chok- 
ing sensation not quite under his control ; but he man- 
aged to complete four stanzas of the poem. The lis- 
teners never knew that hot tears were falling upon 
the tinkling instrument. 

But when, after an interval of a few seconds, the 
guitar again was heard, they were sensible of a change 
in the spirit of the music. There was now no rush 
and tumble of lilting lines, but, instead, a pathetic 
melody in the minor. Then the voice arose again and 
chanted wailingly the song of — Sorrow. 

“ When I was young I said to Sorrow, 

‘Come, and I will play with thee’: — 

He is near m,e now all day, 

And at night returns to say: 

‘ I will call again to-morrow, 

I will come and stay with thee.’ 

Through the woods we walk together. 

His soft footsteps rustle nigh me; 

To shield an unregarded head 
He hath built a winter shed; 

And all night long in rainy weather, 

I hear his gentle breathings by me.” 

No word heard by mortal listener came again from 
the loft that night. Jack laid down the guitar and 
knelt by his bedside. 


SERVITUDE 


183 

In a few square inches of broken mirror that served 
him for a looking-glass, Jack was criticising himself. 
Church bells were ringing for an eleven o’clock ser- 
vice. 

‘‘ I think I look the part,” he said to himself with 
a smile. Only I mustn’t show so much linen,” he 
continued, putting the big turn-down collar inside his 
coat. “ That’s better. No fear of my being taken 
for anything but a plough-boy. The boots would be- 
tray me — if nothing else.” 

He was absurdly mistaken. A stranger glancing 
at him casually would have thought him the son of 
a country gentleman: looked at and examined criti- 
cally, he could not have been set down as a peasant. 
Clothes are something, of course; but Jack’s upright 
figure and well-lifted head, to say nothing of his re- 
fined air and noticeable features, declared the well- 
bred boy — hob-nails or no hob-nails. Of course peo- 
ple stared. Was he not a stranger? Luckily for him- 
self, he was so firmly convinced that he looked the 
character he had assumed that he did not blush under 
the scrutiny to which both rich and poor subjected 
him. 

The service soothed him greatly. Joining in the 
psalms and hymns, he sang pianissimo, for in his im- 
mediate neighborhood very few were taking an ac- 
tive part, and he would not needlessly draw attention 
to himself. He had tried hard to escape the verger 
and take his place in a free pew in the aisle, but that 


i 84 jack south 

functionary led him up the nave and motioned him 
into an upper seat. Jack guessed that the church was 
not very ‘‘ High,” for there were no flowers or lights 
on the Communion table. He was sorry for this. 
If the Vicar had been ‘‘Catholic” (as Dr. South put 
it) the boy would have gone to Confession. It would 
have been such a comfort to him just now. He could 
not go before leaving Graycote, for Mr. Burton did 
not approve of the practice, and “ Father ” Hunton was 
away from home. What an awkward business it was, 
he thought, this having to seek for a “ Catholic ” Priest 
in a church that was (so he had been taught) a branch 
of the One Holy Catholic Church. No wonder his 
father was beginning to be upset by these things! 

Jack remained on his knees when the service was 
over — really trying to pray, but conscious that he 
was also trying to escape the “ after Church ” ordeal 
and to give the congregation a good start homeward. 
He knew that all eyes were upon him. Mothers and 
fathers would look at him kindly enough, no doubt; 
but it was holiday time, and he had noticed several 
families of tall-hatted, Eton-jacketed boys. Like most 
lads he dreaded the criticism of his own kind. They 
would spot his boots in no time, and the snobbish 
among them would write him down a cad. 

Rising at length he came out of Church, looking 
neither to right nor left. Groups were standing about 
the churchyard gate, but Jack saw no one. Once in 


SERVITUDE 185 

the lane, he soon disappeared in the meadows that led 
to Mr. Wilson’s farm. 

He was greatly afraid the late afternoon milking 
would interfere with evening service, a comfort he did 
not want to miss. Since his nursery days, he had 
never experienced a serviceless Sunday night. To his 
great joy, he found that he had plenty of time. 

Jack, like all boys of his temperament, was pecu- 
liarly susceptible to the influences of Sunday evening 
prayer and preaching. To-night everything seemed to 
touch him deeply. Of course there was any amount 
of sentiment mixed up in the glow of feeling that 
seemed to bring him nearer to God; yet there was 
more than sentiment, for he prayed earnestly and long. 

That night as he sat at the open window of his loft, 
he sang all the hymns he had heard that day — and 
many more. And the groups below listened rever- 
ently. 


CHAPTER XX 


CORN HARVEST 

Only in August I have not seen you. 

August comes with his wheat and poppies; 

Ruddy and sunlight in corn and coppice: 

Only in August I have not seen you. 

Jack’s correspondence troubled him, and that in two 
ways. First of all, the act of writing was in itself 
a difficulty. There was nothing in the hayloft where 
he spent his evenings that in the least degree resembled 
a table, and he had to sit on his portmanteau and rest 
a blotting pad on his knees. This, however, was a 
minor difficulty. 

What to say to his mother and sisters, to John 
Graycote and others, was the real worry. Mrs. South 
had greatly improved in health, but the Doctor — now 
returned to Italy — had not ventured to tell her of 
Jack’s spree and its unhappy sequel. She knew that 
her son was at Wilson’s farm, and her husband had 
admitted that Jack was doing some hard work; but 
she had no idea of the actual position of things. 

‘‘ His coming here would have been bad for him,” 
Doctor South had urged. ‘‘ Farm life is just the thing 
for him at this time. He is not in bad health, but 
he had neglected — his games among other things, and 
i86 


CORN HARVEST 187 

his muscles are flabby. In a hot climate like this he 
would be enervated still more.” 

Not to have her boy with her was a huge disappoint- 
ment to the mother, but as she had every confidence 
in her husband^s judgment, and as he assured her that 
what he had done was the best possible thing for Jack’s 
welfare, she soon ceased to grieve. 

But, at first. Jack found it hard to answer all his 
mother’s questions. She now wrote to him twice, 
sometimes thrice, a week, and though she frequently 
begged him not to reply oftener than once in seven 
days. Jack’s love led him to make an effort to write 
at least a postcard every time he heard from her. 
Every Sunday he wrote her a letter. 

After a week or two, however, he found writing 
to his mother not only easier, but an immense comfort. 
John Graycote’s letters remained the difficulty. 

It was evident that “ Clubs ” was suspicious, and 
Jack only hesitated to give him a complete history of 
the events of the past month out of consideration for 
his feelings. 

Graycote had reason to be anxious, if not suspicious, 
for a highly-colored hearsay report of the business 
had reached Darnley Castle. Lord Edward Pankin 
was staying there and assured the Graycotes that a 
friend of his had heard that young South had been 
sent to penal servitude for five years. A telegram to 
Jack himself at Graycote soon disproved this story, 
but in his subsequent letters to John of Clubs, Dia- 


i88 


JACK SOUTH 


monds wrote so guardedly that his chum forbore to 
ask for details and came to the conclusion that Jack 
was, or had been, in serious trouble. 

I can't understand what you’re doing at this 
farm,” wrote Graycote. ‘‘ You never told me that 
this Mr. Wilson was a friend of yours. I never 
guessed you had a taste for agriculture. You say 
you’re ‘ pottering about and helping a bit.’ I can’t 
understand it at all. We’re returning to Graycote next 
week, and I shall come and look you up. There’s 
nothing like a chat for getting at the rights of 
things.” 

Jack was breakfasting as he read his letter, but when 
he came to this part he dropped his spoon into the big 
bowl of bread and milk and groaned. The next mo- 
ment, however, he was trying not to laugh aloud. 
‘‘ John’s quite right,” he thought to himself. ‘‘ There 
is nothing like a chat for setting things right. Let 
him come by all means. It’s the very thing. But will 
Mr. Wilson let me see him?” 

The farmer’s silence was like a nightmare to Jack, 
yet the latter was already beginning to like his father’s 
tenant. Feeling greatly the need of a bath after his 
day’s work, and having scarcely energy- enough to go 
down to the river at night, the boy had begged his 
master to provide him with a tub, adding : ‘‘ I know 
my father would like me to have it, Sir, and I’ve got 
my sponge and bath towels.” 

The farmer’s solemn face relaxed into a smile. 


CORN HARVEST 


189 

** You’re a rare chap for cold water,” he said kindly. 
‘T wish all my lads were as fond of it. Come with 
me a minute, and Til show you something you haven’t 
seen.” 

Jack followed Mr. Wilson into the house and saw 
many things that he had not seen before. It was the 
first time that he had gone beyond the kitchen ; he saw 
now that the house was big and well furnished. 

‘‘ There’s a bath-room here,” the farmer said, tak- 
ing Jack up a wide staircase and opening a door on the 
first landing. “ You can use this as often as you like 
- — when your work’s done.” 

Jack was demonstrative in his gratitude, but Mr. 
Wilson only smiled and stumped downstairs in silence. 
But that night after the boy had written a merry post- 
card to his mother he sang all the happiest songs he 
could remember. He did not know that the farmer 
stood listening for nearly an hour. 

There were indeed many things Jack did not know. 
He never guessed, for instance, that Mr. Wilson was 
in regular correspondence with his (Jack’s) father; 
nor had he any idea of the written orders and regula- 
tions concerning his treatment that same father had 
left in the farmer’s hands. And certainly the lad did 
not know how closely he was watched by his employer. 
Indeed, one of the things Jack was inclined to resent 
in the beginning was that Wilson appeared to take no 
notice whatever of his new hand. 

I wonder how long my father means to keep me 
13 


190 


JACK SOUTH 


here?” was a question Jack could get no answer to. 

All will depend upon circumstances,” Dr. South had 
said when he bade his son “ good-bye.” “ To the end 
of the Holidays, certainly : in all probability much 
longer,” he had written in a recent note. ‘‘ Mr. Wil- 
son reports well of you, and what he says makes me 
very happy. When one month is up, I shouldn’t be 
surprised if he has improved your condition in some 
small way.” 

Jack was going on well with his fellow-laborers. 
The lads no longer jeered at him for his mistakes, and 
indeed he had mastered the details of his daily duties 
very fairly. He could milk with the best of them, 
and the cleaning out of big cow-sheds no longer 
nauseated him. He was still very weary when ‘‘ knock- 
off time ” came, and there were nights when he 
needed all his breath for climbing and the singing died 
away.” 

Harvest time came with September, and the labor 
increased. It was a year of great heat, and the corn- 
fields were like furnaces of red gold. Jack was be- 
ginning to learn how to work — not slowly but meas- 
uredly. In the beginning he had, to use the expression 
of Tom Barclay, '' gone at things a bit too mad- 
headed, like.” Even Mr. Wilson had said more than 
once : There’s no such hurry, lad ; take your time.” 

It was the length of these hot days Jack found so 
tiring. Up at four always, he could never finish till 
seven in the evening, and by nine he was so weary that 


CORN HARVEST 


191 

if he did not get into bed he fell asleep sitting in the 
hay-loft window. 

In spite of everything, however, there was some- 
thing in the life that he began to enjoy. The late sum- 
mer was wonderfully beautiful, he thought, and he 
had never known before what a lovely thing the dawn 
really is. It is true that he was only half awake when 
he got out of his bed and that he came down the step- 
ladder and walked across the yard like one struggling 
against the fumes of opium ; but the fresh morning air 
blowing across dewy meadows soon revived him, and 
after his invariable dip in the river he felt ‘‘ no muscle 
had stopped in its playing,” that no sinew was un- 
braced, and would sing at the top of his voice as he 
drove the cows from the fields — 

“How good is man’s life here, mere living!” 

Even at nightfall his limbs did not ache as they had 
done during the first three weeks, nor did the stupor 
of weariness oppress him so heavily. And night never 
really seemed to fall, for the after-glow remained 
until the coming of the stars and until the Angel of 
Sleep laid his healing hand upon the laboring lad 
and carried him to the fair far homeland of slumber. 

Old Tom Barclay — he was not bailiff, for Mr. 
Wilson himself looked after things, but Tom was a 
bit of a gaffer — was very helpful to Jack and very 
kind. Whether instructed by his master, or not, the 
boy never knew; but there were many things Tom 


192 JACK SOUTH 

would not let him attempt — things that might have 
taxed his strength unduly. Also there were many 
little practical difficulties that puzzled Jack from time 
to time, and for a solution of these he would always 
turn to the old man. Tom would look at him some- 
times with an expression in which there was an odd 
mixture of amazement, amusement and pity. 

Thus one day there was a heavy thunderstorm fol- 
lowed by a long pouring downfall of rain. Jack was 
in the far meadows when it began, and long before 
he could reach the farm, he was soaked to the skin. 
He was wearing the ordinary laboring costume of 
shirt and trousers, and when Tom met him, he insisted 
upon an immediate change. But the next morning 
when Jack tried to put his boots on, he found, to his 
dismay, that he could not get his feet into them. Sod- 
den with rain, they had dried during the night, and 
the thick leather was hard as cast-iron. Running to 
Tom for advice, the old man looked at him wonder- 
ingly for a moment and then laughed heartily. 

“ Eh, lad,” he said, ‘‘ it’s easy to tell as you’ve al’ys 
been waited on hand and foot. Specially t’foot. 
They wants greasin’, Mester Jack, that’s what they 
wants. Bring ’em to t’ saddle-house and let me show 
ye how to do ’t.” 

This introduction to dubbin solved another of Jack’s 
difficulties, and saved him time and labor, for he had 
been wont to expend much blacking daily in making 
his ‘ clinkers,’ as Tom called them, presentable, and 
with rather poor results. 


CHAPTER XXI 


A VISITOR 
“ Nobly hfe yokes 

A smiling with a sigh: as if the sigh 

Was that it was, for not being such a smile; 

The smile mocking the sigh. ...” 

— Cymbeline. 

The Hon. John Graycote stood knocking at the 
front door of Mr. Wilson’s house. He had lifted the 
big iron knocker three times, but no one had as yet 
appeared, for the maids were all in the dairy, and 
the men were in the fields, gathering in the last rem- 
nants of the corn harvest. 

It would be absurd to go away after coming all 
this distance,” John of Clubs said to himself ; I sup- 
pose I’d better prowT about a little. Sure to come 
across somebody.” 

He was very short-sighted, as we know, but both 
sound and scent assured him that he was not very 
far from the farm-yard. Peering through his spec- 
tacles, he saw a door in the wall that enclosed the 
neglected garden and lawn that lay in front of the 
house — a door that might, or might not, lead to the 
farm-yard. As he neared the wall, he heard a sound 
as of the splashing of water from a hose-pipe, and 

193 


194 


JACK SOUTH 


then the ring of iron-shod boots on a cobbled pave- 
ment. “ At any rate/' he thought, “ there is one 
human being about.” 

John opened the door in the wall and found himself 
in a big quadrangle of stables and cow-sheds. Not 
far off was a farm-lad sluicing the rough stones in 
front of the sheds. He had just laid down the run- 
ning hose-pipe and was vigorously brushing the ir- 
regular pavement. The lad’s back was turned to- 
wards Graycote, and though the latter gave one or 
two little coughs as a signal of his approach, the 
young laborer heard only the rush of the running 
water and the sound of his besom on the stones. 

“ Would you be so kind as to tell me,” Graycote 
began, advancing towards the lad, “ if Mr. South 
is — ” 

John! 

The boy had thrown his broom on the stones and 
was looking at the palms of his hands. 

‘‘ No, you mustn’t shake hands, really, John. I’m 
much too dirty,” said Jack, putting his bare arms 
behind his back. “Fancy you catching me like this! 
But, I say. Clubs — don’t look like that. What’s the 
matter? ” 

Graycote was standing petrified with astonishment 
and with his right hand still extended. 

“ It can't be you. Jack! ” he exclaimed at length in 
a breathless sort of way. 

“ But it is, you old duffer. It’s my very own self.” 


A VISITOR 


195 


Jack was red enough already, but he blushed a 
deeper color under Graycote’s short-sighted scrutiny, 
for his old chum was looking him over from the crown 
of his straw hat to the soles of his iron-plated shoes. 

‘‘ My poor dear old Jack — what does it all mean ! 
Graycote ejaculated after a pause. 

Excuse me a moment, John. This water is run- 
ning to waste. I must turn the tap.” 

Jack flew to the standing pipe and stopped the flow 
of water. 

That’s all right,” he said, clattering back over the 
cobbles. Now, John, the first thing is to find my 
— I mean Mr. Wilson. What time is it? ” he asked, 
taking a watch from the breast pocket of his old cricket 
shirt. “Getting on for twelve! John, you must be 
awfully hungry! I have to take the men’s dinner to 
the field in a few minutes. Will you go with me? 
No, John,” — with a sudden movement, “ you must 
have something at once. Let’s go inside.” 

John Graycote had taken possession of Jack’s hands. 

“ Jack, you must be suffering horribly ! ” he ex- 
claimed, keeping the two hands in his own. 

“ Not a bit of it,” Jack declared with a laugh. “ I’m 
as jolly as a sand-boy. But,” as Graycote slid his arm 
into the other’s, “ I may as well tell you that I’m 
‘ doing time.’ In a day or two I shall have finished 
a month’s hard labor.” 

Graycote started violently. “ Surely,” he ejacu- 
lated, “ this is not a prison, or a reformatory ! ” 


196 


JACK SOUTH 

‘‘John, don’t be a donkey! ’Course it isn’t. It’s 
a farm, and a very jolly one. My dad’s very ov^n. 
I’m sent here for punishment, of course, but — how- 
ever, I’ll tell you all about it by and by.” 

“ And you’ll be released in a day or two ? ” Clubs 
asked anxiously. 

“ Can’t say that, John. I fancy not. It’s part of 
my punishment not to know when the business ends. 
‘ Depends upon circumstances,’ my father says.” 

“ You’re looking awfully well. Jack,” said Graycote, 
still clinging affectionately to his friend’s arm. “ Your 
face is the color of my father’s meerschaum pipe. 
Still — with a big sigh — “ you must find it fearfully 
hard, old chap.” 

“ Not as hard as some fellows would, John — your- 
self for instance. Hello! what’s that. Did you hear 
horse-hoofs? Then, that’s the boss. Yes, here he is! 
John, let me introduce you.” 

Mr. Wilson rode into the yard and the two lads 
approached him. “ This, sir, is Mr. Graycote. John, 
this is Mr. Wilson.” 

The farmer dismounted and took off his hat. If 
he had a weakness in his robust character it was that 
which is common to Englishmen as well as to Amer- 
icans. He loved a title. 

“ Proud to meet you, my lord,” said Mr. Wilson, 
remembering confusedly that Graycote was heir to 
a peerage. “ Master South told me you were com- 
ing, but we expected you by a later train.” 


A VISITOR 


197 


John explained that he had found an earlier and 
a more convenient train than the one he had first 
thought of. And/’ he added, I wanted to spend 
as long a time as possible with my friend here.” 

“ ril send somebody else with the men’s dinner,” 
Mr. Wilson whispered to Jack. 

“ John, old man, when you hear everything you’ll 
chuck me,” Jack said as the farmer went into the 
house to hurry dinner and to supervise the prepara- 
tions already made for his distinguished guest. 

“If you only knew how that speech hurts me,” the 
other protested. 

“ Well, I’ve been in no end of a row. Disgraced 
myself horribly and got other fellows into trouble. 
However, we’ll have a quiet hob-nob after dinner. 
I’ve got a holiday for the rest of the day, and — Oh, 
here’s Mr. Wilson coming to take you indoors. You’ll 
like a wash, of course.” 

While Graycote was being shown up to the best 
bedroom by his host. Jack mounted the ladder to his 
loft. 

“ There’s hardly time to change my clothes,” Jack 
reflected. “ But what does it matter ? He’s seen me 
at my worst already. And I’d rather John saw me 
than some fellows — Davison, for instance.” 


After a dinner that, in more ways than one, was 
somewhat heavy, the two boys wandered into the 


198 JACK SOUTH 

meadows, and lay down under the shade of a thick- 
leaved tree. 

Jack unbosomed himself at great length. 

“ I think, John, I’ve told you everything now,’' 
he said at the finish. “ I shan’t be a bit surprised if 
you chuck me after this. You can’t be friends with 
a chap who has been in quod, and — ” 

“ But you haven’t been in quod ! ” Graycote ex- 
claimed with some vehemence, and if you had — ” 
What do you call twenty-four hours in the lock- 
up?” Jack interrupted. “And don’t forget that we 
were taken through the streets chained wrist to wrist 
like convicts. I’ve carried the marks of my handcuffs 
until the last week or two, for I tried to break them, 
and they nearly broke my wrists.” 

“ Please, please don’t, Jack! ” Graycote hid his face 
in his hands. 

“ Well, old man. I’ll not say another word about 
the thing. And — well it’s awfully good of you to 
care so much. But I wanted you to know everything. 
We’ve been chums ever since we were little brats — 
haven’t we? — but I didn’t know. I mean I didn’t 
think — ” 

“ Oh, Jack,” the other moaned. “ It’s all very well 
for you ; you’ve got scores of friends, I know. Every- 
body likes you, and — and no wonder. But it’s so 
different with me. Actually, Jack, you’re the only 
friend I possess — barring my father and mother. 
If no other argument of mine will convince you, let 


A VISITOR 


199 


this serve: I can’t afford to lose you, Jack. There! 
it sounds horrid enough, and selfish enough, but — 
there it is I ” 

Then Jack began to console his old friend, and 
afterwards to chaff him. It was not long before 
Graycote was choking with laughter. 

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and looked at his 
watch. 

I say ! ” he exclaimed, “ Tve missed my only train. 
Jack. Whatever shall I do?” 

'‘Yoicks!” shouted Diamonds. “This is jolly! 
Let’s go and telegraph to your mother. Wilson will 
be delighted to put you up. And I — well it’s just 
scrumptious ! ” 

“ We’ve been clacking here for over two hours,” 
said Clubs — not at all sorry to have lost his train. 
“ Yet I haven’t said a hundredth part of what I wanted 
to say.” 

“ Nor I,” said Jack. “ But first of all we’ll find 
Mr. Wilson. Then we’ll go to the post-office and tele- 
graph.” 

The farmer was more than pleased to give the 
“ young lord ” a bed, and began to issue orders for a 
mighty supper. 

The post office was a mile and a half off. John 
began to ask his friend a thousand questions in regard 
to his new life. 

“ No, John, it’s no use your trying to make me out 


200 


JACK SOUTH 


an agricultural student/' South said after giving his 
friend some details of farm life. “ I’m just a com- 
mon, ordinary, barn-door, British cow-boy; not the 
cow-boy of romance, remember, but the genuine Eng- 
lish article.” 

And do you always wear this dress ? ” asked Clubs. 

‘‘ Always — except on Sundays. I’d have changed 
in your honor, John — if you’d given me time; but 
really my Sunday suit is not very different to this — 
frieze instead of corduroy. Perhaps the boots weigh 
an ounce or two less, but they’re nailed and plated 
pretty much like these.” 

‘‘ Poor old Jack!” 

‘‘ John, if you didn’t wear specs I’d give you one in 
the eye ! ” exclaimed the laughing Diamonds. “ I 
can’t stand being pitied. These boots are jolly com- 
fortable, now I’ve got used to ’em — though they do 
make a bit of a row on the stones. And as for clothes 
— well, who cares for clothes ? ” 

Not I, certainly,” rejoined Clubs, thinking how 
small was the difference they made in Jack’s appear- 
ance. 

Years ago a dreadfully candid nurse under notice 
to leave had said to Graycote — though not in South’s 
hearing : “No amount o’ fine clothes ’ll ever make 
you look handsome. Master John. It’s Master Jack 
South that’s got the look of a young nobleman.” 

John thought of this speech and, without resenting 
it in the least, admitted its truthfulness. 


A VISITOR 


201 


When they returned from the post office, Jack took 
his friend to the hay-loft. Clubs was aghast. “ This 
is much too awful ! ” he exclaimed with a groan. 

Now, John,’’ cried his chum making a rush at the 
lanky, spectacled lad, ‘‘ if you don’t put in that pitying 
stop I’ll shake you as Alice shook the Red Queen. 
You haven’t a cozier bed than this at Graycote Hall, 
and as for the loft — why in the hot weather * it’s 
better than any bedroom. Look how spacious it 
is!” 

The boys had a merry evening, and (for the first 
time since Jack had known, him) Farmer Wilson 
laughed heartily — particularly when his “ cowboy ” 
sang to guitar accompaniment : 

’Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare, 

“ You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.” 

Jack could at any time have passed a searching ex- 
amination in his Lewis Carroll, and, seeing that the 
Alice ” lyrics touched an unexpected spring of hu- 
mor in his master, the boy sang and played every one 
of them — to Graycote’s comfort and delight. 

Take a good long rest in the morning,” Mr. Wil- 
son said to Jack as he bade the boys good-night.” 
“ You must have another bit of a holiday to-morrow. 
I dare say your friend won’t care to go till after din- 
ner.” 

Summer lingering warmed the lap of Autumn. The 
September morning was almost sultry, and the two 


202 


JACK SOUTH 


boys were glad to seek the river bank and there take 
shelter under a tent-like tree. 

“ This reminds me of Tishley Wood — a little bit/' 
said Jack. 

Graycote assented. “Just what I was thinking. 
By-the-way, Johnny Gidlow hasn't gone to Cowpool 
yet." 

“ No, I can't understand it. But he's doing well at 
that grammar school — isn't he ? " 

“ Extremely well, Jack. And he's making progress 
in music, I hear. Going to learn harmony, and all 
that. But, talking of Cowpool, we've heard that Mr. 
Hunton is about to resign his living, and my father 
says that means that he's going over to Rome." 

Jack was startled. He did not say so, but his 
thought was : “If Mr. Hunton goes over to Rome, 
my father and mother are sure to do the same." 

They began to talk of Davison, and Jack could 
not help noticing that Graycote, for some reason or 
other, did not care to discuss Jack of Spades. 

“ Tell me all about your life here. Jack," Graycote 
said again and again; so Jack gave his chum a faith- 
ful and, at the same time, a serio-comic account of his 
daily doings. 

Jack had never been a dandy: a well-dressed, per- 
fectly groomed lad he had always been. This morn- 
ing, in honor of his friend's visit, he had put a broad 
collar round the neck of his white linen jacket, and as 
he lay on the river bank, he looked both clean and 


A VISITOR 


203 


cool. One serious deficiency, however, he had for- 
gotten, and as he rolled over on the grass and lifted 
his heavily booted feet in the air Graycote noticed that 
his old chum had no socks on. 

“ Fact is,” said Jack in explanation, Fve used 
them all up. And really it doesn’t make much differ- 
ence. None of the other lads here wear socks in hot 
weather.” 

‘‘ But those tremendous heavy boots must hurt your 
bare feet awfully ! ” 

Not a bit of it,” said the laughing Jack. ‘‘ They 
don’t fit so well without socks, perhaps; but all you 
have to do is to lace them tighter. I’m very fond of 
my boots, John, so don’t you go detracting them. 
Why, they’re quite a work of art. Look at that big 
square of hob-nails in the sole! Notice the thickness 
of the iron plates on the heels, and those solid lumps 
of the same metal on the toes! They’re just lovely! ” 
Jack, old man, you’re being punished much too 
heavily,” Graycote said with a sigh. 

“ Not a bit of it ! ” exclaimed Jack, throwing a small 
pebble at his chum. I deserve all I’ve got, and a 
jolly sight more. Besides, John, I’m not a kid, and 
I’m not the least bit delicate. Hands and feet are 
getting hard as iron,” he continued clapping his palms 
together, and making his boot heels ring as he banged 
one foot against the other. Dad was quite right to 
punish me like this. Of course, I should like to know 
how long it’s going to last. It’ll be jolly hard if I’ve 


204 


JACK SOUTH 


to spend the winter here,” he added clasping a bare 
ankle with his right hand. Fancy going out into 
the fields at four o’clock on a winter’s morning! 
Ugh!” 

It’s not possible that you’ll be here much longer ? ” 
“ Don’t know about that. Dad does things very 
thoroughly, you know. He’s awfully fond of me, and 
of course he’ll want to make a good job of this busi- 
ness. Don’t be surprised, John, if I’m not at Graycote 
for Christmas.” 

For several hours the two lads chatted and argued, 
Graycote being as determined to offer sympathy as 
Jack was to deprecate it — though the latter felt very 
lonely when his old chum had to bid him good-bye. 


CHAPTER XXII 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 


"Therefore I do repent 
That with religion vain, 

And misconceived pain, 

I have my music bent 

To waste on bootless things its skiey-gendered rain; 

Yet shall a wiser day 
Fulfil more heavenly way. 

And with approved music clear this slip 
I trust in God most sweet; 

Meantime the silent lip. 

Meantime the climbing feet.” 

— Francis Thompson. 

Many things at Wilson’s farm puzzled Jack, but its 
master was the greatest enigma. It was not merely 
that he was silent and reserved, but that his habits 
were so odd. On Sundays Mr. Wilson never appeared 
at the parish church, nor at any of the home meals. 
Jack for some time hesitated to question old Tom con- 
cerning his master’s doings, but one Monday morning 
when the two were working in the fields side by side, 
the boy ventured to say : — 

‘‘ Is Mr. Wilson a Methodist, Tom? ” 

‘‘ No, Master Jack, he’s a Cath’lic.” 

Jack hesitated for a moment, and stared at the old 
man inquiringly. Then with the superior knowledge 

205 


14 


2o6 


JACK SOUTH 


of an Anglican schoolboy he ventured to say : ‘‘ I 

suppose you mean a Roman Catholic, Tom ? ” 

‘‘You may put Roman to T if youVe a mind . I 
reckon it makes no matter. There’s only one sort o’ 
Cath’lics — them what believes in t’ Pope.” 

Jack did not take much notice of this speech as it 
was uttered; but it remained in his mind all the same. 
He was wondering if Tom himself believed in the 
Pope. 

“ Of course,” the old man went on, as Jack said 
nothing in reply — “ I don’t want to interfere wi’ any 
man’s religion. I wor born and brought up a Cath’lic 
mysen, and a Cath’lic Pll die — if I’m in my right 
mind. I reckon it’s only o’ late years as some Protes- 
tants ’as taken to callin’ ’emselves Cath’lic. Well, 
and I could call mysen a dook if I liked, but that 
wouldna mek me one — would it, Mester Jack? ” 

Jack laughingly admitted the argument, and the 
subject was dropped; but the boy did not forget Tom’s 
words. 

Another matter that puzzled Jack was the farmer’s 
way of living. The house was a late eighteenth-cen- 
tury mansion, evidently containing many rooms. Jack 
thought it must be as big as, if not bigger than. Gray- 
cote Grange. Judging from the fagade, there were 
large and well-furnished rooms on the ground floor, 
but at present Jack’s view of the interior was confined 
to a mere glance taken in passing the windows when 
he was sent to sweep the gravelled walks of the garden 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 


207 


and lawn. It seemed more than odd that Mr. Wilson 
should make no use of these apartments. Of course 
he had a private room to which he always retired after 
dinner; but the only parts of the house Jack was ac- 
quainted with were the kitchen and scullery and the 
big room — house-place, it was called — where meals 
were served. 

'During the day, and from an early hour in the 
morning, Mr. Wilson could easily be accounted for; 
on Sundays and certain other days — market day was 
one of them — and in the evenings, he was never to 
be seen — at any rate, by Jack. Above all things the 
farmer was a practical man. He supervised every- 
thing, and looked to it that every man and boy earned 
his wages. It was only afterwards Jack found out 
that Mr. Wilson gave his men several shillings a week 
more than his neighbors paid and that the men were 
told to say nothing about it. It accounted in some 
measure for the fact that Wilson’s “ hands ” were 
above the average of their kind, both in conduct and 
in the quality of their labor. Mr. Wilson could pick 
and choose his men. 

Jack hated trying to pry into things, but sometimes 
when he was working with Tom, as he often did, he 
would let fall a remark that opened the flood-gates of 
the old man’s speech. 

‘‘ It’s like this, Mester Jack,” Tom said on one of 
these occasions. Mester’s niver bin t’ same man 
since Missis died.” The old gaffer proceeded to pro- 


208 


JACK SOUTH 


nounce a panegyric on ‘‘ Missis,” entering into more 
lengthy details of his master’s family life than Jack 
could either grasp or remember. On one point, how- 
ever, the boy was clear : Mrs. Wilson had been a re- 
markably good woman, and her husband was still 
mourning her loss. 

Mester used to be jolly enough,” Tom continued; 
‘‘ but now-a-days he’s hardly got a word to chuck at 
a dog — much less a smile. But he’s a good mester 
for all that, and t’ best farmer for fifty mile round.” 

Jack endorsed Tom’s judgments heartily. In the 
first days of his exile at the farm, the lonely lad had 
greatly feared the hard-faced man; the fear was not 
entirely gone, but it was beginning to be mixed with 
liking and respect. There were times, he thought, 
when Mr. Wilson looked at him with kindliness; but 
though the farmer often seemed to be on the point of 
uttering some sympathetic word, for the present that 
word remained unsaid. 

The daily letters Jack received heartened him con- 
siderably. ‘‘ How jolly hard it would be,” he often 
thought, ‘‘ if they didn’t write to me, and if I couldn’t 
write to them ! ” 

Good news of his mother’s health made him almost 
gay, and when one letter told him that, if the improve- 
ment went on, it was quite likely that she and his father 
would return to England in October, Jack danced a 
hob-nailed break-down on the floor of the barn. 

The doctors think a more bracing air will now 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 


209 


be good for her,” said his father's letter ; ‘‘ and though 
I fear we may have to fly to the Riviera in November, 
my own hope is that, if the winter be fairly mild, we 
may be able to remain at Graycote permanently. I 
need riot say, my dear lad, that directly we get home 
we shall pay you a visit. We are both longing for 
the sight of you, as you know.” 

Jack would have thought the stable-cleansing labors 
of Hercules light after such a letter as this. 

The month’s hard labor had seemed a very long 
one, yet the day came when it was alleviated. And 
the day was a notable one. After breakfast one morn- 
ing, Mr. Wilson called Jack aside, and beckoning him 
upstairs, took him into an airy and well-furnished bed- 
room. 

You’ve done with the loft, my lad; for the future 
you’ll sleep here.” 

Jack’s gratitude was great. There were two win- 
dows in the room, and close to' one of them stood a 
writing table. His luggage had already been removed 
from the loft. 

You can use it as a sitting-room after work and 
on Sundays,” the farmer added, and you can play 
your music here.” 

Following his master downstairs. Jack marveled 
when he found that the silent man had something more 
to say. 

I think if you get up at five in future it’ll be soon 
enough. It’s getting a bit chilly now o’ mornings.” 


210 


JACK SOUTH 


Jack had already found the coldness of the early 
morning in late September somewhat trying, and his 
daily dip in the river required courage. 

‘‘ S'pose you can drive the cart into Kinchester? 
Mr. Wilson inquired. “ There are two or three things 
I want from the shops.” 

Jack flushed with pleasure. It was the first time 
he had been sent to the market town alone. This 
was a vote of confidence in him on Mr. Wilson’s part. 
Moreover, there were several little things Jack himself 
wanted. His hair had not been cut for five weeks, and 
he felt that his thick black curls were lengthening 
uncomfortably. Then he wanted some guitar strings 
and several trifles of a like kind. 

An hour later Jack was driving towards Kinchester 
at a smart trot. It was Saturday morning, and though 
Mr. Wilson had been to the weekly market on the 
previous day, he had spent so much time in striking 
a bargain with an obstinate neighbor that his own 
marketing had been to some extent neglected. Jack 
had a written list of errands in his pocket, and the 
number of shops he had to visit was large. 

‘‘ Take your time, my lad,” the farmer had said. 
“ You can look about you a bit, and get some dinner 
at the ‘ George,’ where you put up the horse. It’ll 
do if you’re back by four o’clock.” 

It’s a holiday,” Jack said to himself with a happy 
laugh, ‘‘ a regular holiday for me, and I must make 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 21 1 

the most of it. What a good sort Wilson is, after 
all!’^ 

Alternately he sang and whistled all the way to 
Kinchester — now thinking of the lightening of his 
lot — the extra hour’s sleep, the new quarters ; above 
all, of the confidence of his master. 

Jack had scarcely entered the inn yard, when he 
saw, not Davison, but two lads wearing the caps of 
Davison’s school. There could be no doubt about it; 
the odd combination of loud colors was unmistak- 
able! Was it possible that Davison could be in the 
neighborhood? Johnny Gidlow had said that Jack 
of Spades was spending his holidays with some school 
chums in the country, and Kinchester was the centre 
of a great country district — from any part of which 
these fellows might have driven. 

There were many reasons why Jack found the 
thought of Davison disconcerting. Several times 
during the last Christmas holidays they had met. 
Graycote was present once and then Spades had been 
very civil; but Jack had not failed to notice that when 
he himself was alone, Davison’s manner was anything 
but cordial, and that on the last occasion the gardener’s 
son made some sneering allusion to Gidlow. Jack 
thought little of it at the time, for the reason that his 
own mind was pre-occupied with the festive doings at 
the Hall; but it occurred to him later that there was 
something Spades had neither forgotten nor forgiven 
— in spite of the Feast of Reconciliation. 


212 


JACK SOUTH 


“ I suspect he’s still jealous of Jack of Hearts,” 
Graycote said, when South spoke of the matter. 

And I daresay he has not forgiven us for ordering 
him to make compensation to Johnny. If you come 
to think of it, we did take a rather high hand.” 

Not higher than the circumstances warranted,” 
said Jack. ‘‘ Perhaps it’s a pity there’s been no skat- 
ing this year, or any out-door sport in which he could 
have joined us. He feels a bit out of it, no doubt.” 

Surely the fellow did not expect us to entertain 
him at the hall ! ” Graycote exclaimed. He’ll be 
asked to the servants’ ball, of course.” 

Spades was asked, but he did not appear. His father 
explained that John had a cold. 

The boys were right in their surmises. Spades had 
not forgiven them for forcing him to apologise to 
Hearts, and he was savagely jealous both of Hearts 
and Diamonds. Davison must perforce be civil to the 
Hon. Mr. Graycote; but as to South and Gidlow — • 
well, let them both look out ! Every dog had its day, 
he argued; his day would come sooner or later. 

But when the gardener’s son heard in a letter from 
home that Johnny Gidlow had been sent to school by 
Dr. South, and that he was now dressed “ like a little 
lord,” his annoyance and jealousy increased tenfold. 

One of the commonest instincts of our nature is 
the quick discovery, apart from direct evidence, that 
we are liked or disliked. Occasionally, no doubt, the 
instinct is a false one ; generally, nothing can be truer. 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 


213 


Ever since Jack’s little trouble, he had felt that, as 
far as he knew, only one person of his acquaintance 
would rejoice over his fall. The person he named to 
himself was John Davison. 

The two lads who wore the pronounced colors of 
Davison’s School were hanging about the side entrance 
to the George but it was only when Jack had un- 
harnessed the horse that he saw them joined by 
Davison himself, who suddenly appeared with a very 
red face at the side door of the inn. Jack hung back 
and watched the three swagger out of the yard. 

The market ordinary was at one o’clock, and when 
Jack had spent an hour or two in doing his master’s 
shopping, he found that it was time to return to the 
inn. 

With just a passing doubt as to whether there might 
not be a separate table for farm hands, he took his 
seat. Farmers and their sons filed in rapidly, and as 
chair after chair was taken near his own, Jack became 
an amused listener to the conversation that went on 
around him. But he was very hungry, and the change 
of food was welcome, so that he did not notice the 
entrance of Davison and his two friends. His neigh- 
bors gave him ‘‘^ood-day,” and looked at him in- 
quiringly, but in a manner altogether friendly. Soon 
the conversation became lively, and Jack ate and lis- 
tened and laughed. 

It was at the removal of the joints that his attention 


214 


JACK SOUTH 


was caught by what seemed to be an altercation be- 
tween a waiter and some tipsy person sitting a good 
many places below Jack, but on the same side of the 
table. The boy turned to see what was the matter, 
but his view was blocked by heads stretching forward, 
and he was too well-mannered to stand up in his place. 
A plate of apple-tart was put before him, and Jack 
was quite content to let the row settle itself. 

But the noise only increased. One or two men sit- 
ting near Jack broke off their conversation to listen. 
Others followed their example, and in a few seconds 
only the voices of the contending parties could be 
heard. It was then that Jack recognised the tones of 
John Davison. 

I tell you that lad yonder ought not to sit down to 
dine with us. He’s not respectable, I tell you. He’s 
a jail-bird, only just let out of his cage, and I can 
prove it.” 

Jack understood in an instant, and his heart began 
to beat wildly. ‘‘ I’ll kill that cad in another minute,” 
was the thought that leapt into his mind — a thought 
he at once rejected with horror. 

Go and ask him to pay for his dinner,” Davison 
was shouting to the waiter, ‘‘ then you’ll see.” 

Jack pushed back his chair and rose, but the land- 
lord of the George ” had come upon the scene. Per- 
haps he saw the boy’s blazing eyes; at any rate he 
interposed before Jack could reach Davison. 

‘‘ Step this way a minute, sir,” he said politely, but 


I 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 


215 

laying his hand on Jack's arm, and almost before the 
latter knew where he was, the two had passed into 
a small private room. Jack was quivering with indigo 
nation. 

‘‘ What is the price of my dinner ? " he demanded. 

The landlord mentioned the sum. Jack promptly 
put it on the table. There is one lie disproved," he 
exclaimed. 

The landlord was eying him carefully. He was 
thinking that a more gentlemanly lad he had never 
seen. At the same time, the man was trying to ac- 
count for the incongruities of Jack’s dress. Speech 
and looks contradicted every detail of it, saving the 
clean turn-down collar. 

“You know Mr. Wilson of Clemington ? ’’ Jack 
asked. 

“ No one better, sir," the landlord assured him. 

“ Then Tm in his employ. His horse and cart are 
in your yard. If you want to know more about me — 
ask him.” 

Jack turned on his heel and was making for the 
door. 

Don’t, sir, I beg of you," the landlord pleaded 
respectfully, at the same time putting his back to the 
door. “The truth is, sir, the young man in there 
has had a little too much liquor for a lad of his age. 
His quarrel is with the waiter, not with you, sir. 
I’ve forbidden the man to serve him with any more 
drink, and, of course, he’s very angry. Now I’m 


2i6 


JACK SOUTH 


sure you^re too much of a gentleman to make a dis- 
turbance in a respectable house like mine.” 

Angry as he was Jack could not help smiling at the 
bit of flattery so adroitly introduced. 

“ I won’t make any disturbance,” said Jack turning 
up the cuffs of his coat, but I’m going to thrash that 
cur within an inch of his life.” 

But not here, if you please, sir,” coaxed the man. 

A fight at my market ordinary would ruin my house. 
And I do assure you, sir, he’s not responsible for his 
words just now. He began to drink as soon as ever 
he came here this morning.” 

A sudden crash was heard in the dining-room be- 
yond, and the noise of over-turned chairs. The land- 
lord opened the door, and Jack was just in time to see 
Davison hauled from the room by his two chums and 
a waiter. The half-tipsy lad had forgotten Jack for 
the moment; all his rage was now being vented on 
the waiter. But as Jack stepped forward into the 
dining-room Davison caught sight of him. 

Come on, you puppy ! ” he shrieked, strug- 

gling to free himself. ‘‘ Come on and fight it out if 
yor are not a coward ! ” 

Jack stepped straight up to him, the landlord fol- 
lowing, and imploring them not to fight. 

“ How can I fight a fellow who is practically 
drunk?” Jack said turning to the landlord. Then 
folding his arms and going nearer to Davison he said 


SEVERAL DISCOVERIES 


217 


in a clear, calm voice that was heard all over the 
room : John Davison, you’re a liar and a cad, and 

when you are sober I will fight you ! ” 

The next moment Jack had re-taken his seat at the 
table, and Davison was being hoisted into his friend’s 
dog-cart. Thanks to the quickness of landlord, ostler 
and waiter, before Jack had finished his cheese the 
trio were on their way home. 

Such a scene as this was not at all a common one 
at the ‘‘ George,” and everybody was indignant. Jack 
found himself a hero. His health was drunk with 
enthusiasm, and certainly if the boy had accepted a 
third of the various drinks pressed upon him by un- 
thinking but generous farmers, he would soon have 
been in worse case than Davison himself. 

“That youth” (referring to Davison) “wants to 
be a man too soon,” said Jack’s right-hand neighbor. 
“I saw him myself drinking whiskey at half-past nine 
this morning. Why, he’s hardly sixteen yet ” — the 
old farmer continued turning looking at Jack. “ I 
reckon he’s about your own age.” 

“ He’s a year older, I think, and I am fifteen.” 

The farmer thought what a contrast the two boys 
had been as they stood together. Davison in a tail- 
coat, high stand-up collar and very tight patent leather 
shoes, and the boy at his side in a jacket of coarse 
black frieze (Jack’s Sunday coat) and boots that spoke 
of the farm, though to-day Jack had contrived to 


2i8 


JACK SOUTH 


give them quite a high polish. Yet one was the un- 
mistakable gentleman; the other an equally unmis- 
takable cad. 

The boy was feeling grateful to his neighbors in 
that they had forborne to catechise him; now, how- 
ever, two middle-aged men who had been whispering 
together suddenly broke off. Jack caught the sound 
of his own surname. 

You’ll excuse me, young gentleman,” one of them 
said leaning across the table, “ but might you be a 
son of Dr. South of Graycote?” 

“ I am his only son,” Jack answered with a blush. 

The two men opposite looked at one another and 
nodded in a way that said as plainly as possible : “ I 

told you so ! ” . 

Jack drained his glass of lemonade and rose to take 
his leave. He thought afterwards that his hand 
would be rendered useless for driving purposes — so 
hearty were the parting shakes he received from the 
guests of the “ George.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE DRIVE HOME 

“The saddest tears are those that never fall, 

But are held smarting in the aching eyes. 

The truest prayers can find no words at all. 

But flutter wearily to God, in sighs.” 

As Jack drove home that Saturday afternoon, his 
feelings were mixed. He did not dwell much upon 
Davison's words, yet it is never pleasant to reflect 
that one has an enemy, and an active, unrelenting one. 
Jack had been so much loved all the days of his life 
that the thought of being hated by even one person 
would have caused him intense pain if he had dwelt 
upon it over-much. He was not going to do so, he 
told himself. He knew that, once roused, his own 
temper was a fierce one. For an instant that very 
day, the spirit of murder had possessed him. He 
shuddered at the thought of it. Supposing in the 
heat of his rage he had struck Davison and the blow 
had been a fatal one! Jack's imagination immed- 
iately pictured a crowded court — a verdict of wilful 
murder — a black-capped judge — a condemned cell. 
Would they hang a criminal of fifteen? If they did 
not, how horrible the alternative ! 

But he had not struck Davison. With the help of 
219 


220 


JACK SOUTH 


God, he never would. Jack took off his hat in the 
lonely lane he was driving through, and vowed that, 
whatever might happen, he would never lift a hand 
against John Davison. 

Jack had often asked for help; he had never prayed 
as he did to-day. His need for the future was great. 
No wonder, perhaps, if his sin of disobedience at Lac- 
ton followed him everywhere. All his life through, 
perhaps, it would constantly find him out. He would 
never be able to give the lie to anyone who said that 
he had been in the hands of the police; but that he 
was a jail-bird, as Spades had asserted, that he could 
deny. After all, a scrape of this kind could be lived 
down. Life was all before him, and no one could 
make him sin against his will. 

Merlin’s words to Vivien came into his mind, and he 
repeated aloud: 

“The sin that practice burns into the blood, 

And not the one dark hour which brings remorse, 

Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be.” 


Jack was not given to self-analysis. His mind was 
of the order that rejects gloomy thoughts, simply be- 
cause they are gloomy. In past times he had fre- 
quently taken John Gray cote to task for his knack of 
dwelling — not on the unwholesome; neither lad 
could tolerate that — but on the needlessly painful 
and the gratuitously saddening. Jack had come into 
the world with many gifts, and equal to his apprecia^ 


THE DRIVE HOME 


221 


tion of the beautiful in music and song was his sense 
of the humorous. It was this last that made him so 
popular with his own kind, and its possession saved 
him from much self-conceit and from the making of 
many mistakes. From his birth, too, he had enjoyed 
that soundness of body which can never be without 
its effect upon the mind, and the simple, cheery, open- 
air life of the country, both at home and at school, had 
brought him to the age of fifteen, straight of limb and 
soun'd of mind, clear of eye and steady of hand. 

Certainly the past year had been a trying one, both 
for mind and body, and, as Jack had moved about 
meadow and farmyard, he frequently reviewed its 
events — not of set purpose, but because, do what he 
would, the mental panorama of those unhappy months 
would unroll itself. He was sometimes disposed to 
blame circumstances; and, certainly. Opportunity is a 
great factor in the life of every boy and every man. 
Some good people never make sufficient allowance 
for it. 

It was Christmas at the Hall that threw me out of 
gear,’^ he sometimes thought. What a pity mother 
and father were obliged to go abroad just then!’' 
But memory took him back a little further and showed 
him pictures of the summer holidays of last year and 
the school term from September to Christmas. It 
was then. Jack confessed to himself, that he had begun 
to deteriorate. Then had started, or rather, had in- 
creased — for its beginning dated from a still earlier 
15 


222 


JACK SOUTH 


time — that seeming insuperable inability to work 
steadily. It was then he had allowed the music mania 
to master him. At the time itself he had felt help- 
less and irresponsible; he knew now that this was an 
error. Of course those weeks at the Hall had riveted 
the chains he had put upon himself : equally of course, 
the Bazaar proceedings of Easter had doubled and 
trebled his weight of fetters. 

The mystery of life may, and often does, weigh 
heavily upon the growing boy: there were moments 
when Jack found its burden almost intolerable. Hap- 
pily, they were moments only. Thanks to his healthy 
bringing up and the love that had never been denied 
him, both mind and body were too robust to be last- 
ingly hurt by painful thoughts. He fought against 
them, and they disappeared — for a time at least ; and 
when they returned, as often as not his mind had re- 
gained its balance and was occupied by healthier mat- 
ter. Once or twice in his earlier days at the farm he 
had dreamed distressing dreams of Lacton — waking 
and springing up with a great cry to find himself — 
not in the cells, or in the prisoner’s dock, as he had 
thought, but lying in his bed in the moon lit hay- 
loft. At such times his after-sleep was very sweet. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


DAY DREAMS 

" Nor shall the autumn strike us dumb. 

Who knows what fruit for us shall be 
Swung in some ruddy-hearted tree: 

What hopes shall find their harvesting 
When outward birds are on the wing.” 

— Katherine Tynan. 

On that Saturday night, Jack’s sleep was more than 
sweet. For a sense of greater closeness to the old 
boy-life was upon him, and, though all the long night 
through he could never reach those arms that had 
enfolded him as a little baby, ^as a tired child, as a 
mother-loving boy, he seemed to experience the restful 
feeling that all was well and that the one who loved 
him most was very near. 

The comfortable, neat-looking bedroom may have 
had something to do with it, but his mother’s recent 
letter had much more, and when he awoke and saw — 

“ The ever-silent spaces of the East, 

Far-folded mists and gleaming halls of morn,” 

he turned by a sort of new spiritual instinct to the 
Lord whose Day had just begun. 

During these times Jack noticed and fell in love 
with many things he had not studied or greatly cared 

223 


224 


JACK SOUTH 


for before. The dawn fascinated him, and the chang- 
ing tints of autumn thrilled him. He had always 
loved nature in his own way; but the absence of a 
score of interests that, as a school-boy, had filled his 
mind and given him small leisure for observation, left 
his soul in a receptive and meditative mood to which 
he had been almost a stranger in the past. No one 
had ever enjoyed the charm of sunshine more than 
jack, or been more alive to the tender loveliness of 
spring or the riper beauties of summer. He had even 
been “ tolerant of the colder time,” and had noticed 
the branching grace of leafless elm, or naked lime.” 
But the subtler and more hidden sweetness of the earth 
as God made it had hitherto eluded him. His mind 
was now lying fallow. 

In the beginning of his new life he had been con- 
scious of little save the heat and benumbing effects of 
unaccustomed labor. The muscular strain was great 
and connected thought impossible. Now he had 
reached the period of doing mechanical things in a 
mechanical way; they were not done less well because 
of this. The nerve strain was small, and the boy’s 
mind began to feed upon all that he saw. The 
autumn dawn sang to him, and he must needs respond. 
The gathering of harvest gold mingled with the blood 
of poppies inspired him. The sounds and scents of 
farm life took a fresh meaning. He had done his 
Homer and Virgil badly enough in the near past; but 
stray reminiscences of both came back to him as he 


DAY DREAMS 


225 


trod the stubble, or wetted his iron clamped feet with 
the morning dew of the meadows, and life became an 
idyl of many parts, each crowned with a happy song. 
He was sent to the orchard to pick the crimson and 
russet fruit, and the apples clustered for him like 
sweet baby faces newly kissed by their mother the sun, 
or bearing upon their smooth cheeks the diamond 
tears of a passing shower. The wooden yoke pressed 
heavily upon his young shoulders; but each polished 
pail became a reservoir of snowy, foaming, Homeric 
milk. His blood tingled with constant exercise in the 
chilly mornings and chillier evenings, and the red 
stream coursed merrily through his veins as he 
splashed the icy water over his tired limbs. Life grew 
very gladsome and good, and the evening music of his 
lute was jubilant. 

Jack did not think himself religious. He was at 
once far more pagan and far more Christian than he 
knew. But the quasi-paganism of him was innocent, 
because it was natural and pure. His spiritual lights 
had hitherto been uncertain and dim. What he knew 
to be right and good he practised. He was impressed 
with the necessity of prayer. Feeling his need of it, 
he never omitted, twice a day, to kneel down and 
speak to the God who made him. Boys, as well as 
men, had souls, he reminded himself, and the young, 
as well as the old, sometimes died. ‘‘ The child must 
have its mother: my soul must have its God.’’ He 
.had never read these words, but the sense of them was 


226 


JACK SOUTH 


in his mind. Without prayer his loneliness would 
have grown intolerable. His father and mother had 
not even forsaken him temporarily ; still he felt deeply 
the need of being in touch with his Maker. There 
were time, even, when Jack exaggerated his faults, for 
he had not yet learned to distinguish between the acci- 
dental results of a mistaken course of action, and a wil- 
ful infringement of the Divine law. He had much 
to learn, but, thanks to his training, he was teachable. 

Sad as Dr. South had been on the morning he sent 
his son to Wilson’s, the father could not help laugh- 
ing when Jack showed him the half-dozen books he 
had selected. It seemed such an exceedingly far cry 
from Pindar’s Odes — a new translation the Doctor 
had just bought — to one of Ballantyne’s boy stories. 
That Jack should take a prayer book was of course. 
It was the book of Common Prayer, bound up incon- 
gruously enough, with a high-church manual of de- 
votions selected entirely from Catholic sources. Ca- 
verley’s verses and one of Lewis Carroll’s books did 
not surprise the Doctor, but he was not quite prepared 
for the big volume of Tennyson. He certainly 
thought the sack very much in excess of the bread, but 
he made no comment; except that as Jack was leaving 
the room with his books in his arms his father said 
quietly : ‘‘ Have you room for a New Testament, my 

dear ? ” 

“ Oh, I’ve put that in, father,” the boy said. I 
knew you wouldn’t want me to ask leave for that/^ 


DAY DREAMS 


227 

Jack spoke very simply, but the words made his 
father happy. 

This then had been Jack’s library for the last month. 
Now that he had a real bedroom he could display his 
seven books and the magazines that regularly reached 
him. He read a little every night, and, in order not 
to get into arrears with his correspondence, made a 
point of writing at least a few paragraphs each day. 
It was seldom a morning passed without his receiving 
a letter. His sisters were excellent correspondents, 
and John Graycote now wrote every week. More- 
over, his old chums having reassembled at Beechwood 
— saving the three who had been his companions in 
the Lacton scrape — began to pelt him with letters, 
each one of which was a series of notes of inter- 
rogation. 


CHAPTER XXV 


IN mother’s arms 
“His heart’s a drop-well of tranquillity.” 

Jack was turning the handle of a hay-chopper, and 
his brow dripped with perspiration. The entry of 
Mr. Wilson made him look up with surprise. There 
was an unusually happy look upon the farmer’s face, 
but all he said was : I reckon that’ll have to do for 
to-day. Better go into the house and see who’s 
there.” 

The boy did not even stop to unroll his shirt sleeves, 
or put on his jacket, but ran down from the chopping 
chamber and across the yard at full speed. A minute 
later he was lying in his mother’s arms, his own bare 
arms locked about her neck. 


The smell of my son is as the smell of a field that 
the Lord hath blessed,” Mrs. South was saying to 
her boy. 

Jack had seated himself between father and mother 
— forgetful of everything but the great fact that he 
' was near them. Suddenly it occurred to him that he 
was coatless and waistcoatless. 

228 


IN MOTHER’S ARMS 


229 


I’m so sorry, mother,” he said gently disengaging 
the hand she still held, and pulling down the sleeves 
of his white flannel shirt. “ I’ll change my clothes — 
if I may, father.” 

‘‘ WeVe come to see you, dear lad, not your 
clothes,” said the Doctor affectionately. '' Mother 
was quite prepared for your working costume. Jack; 
but is that really a belt ? ” he asked laying his hand on 
the broad thick strap Jack wore instead of braces, or 
is it a piece of horse harness? ” 

Jack could not reply, for his mother had suddenly 
seized him and was laying his head upon her shoulder. 

My darling Jack ! ” she murmured again and 
again as she kissed his lips, and brushed the short 
black curls from his wet forehead. 

Mother and father and son were trying hard not to 
break down in the joy of their reunion; but as Jack 
felt his mother’s tears falling upon his face he could 
not help sobbing aloud. 

There were no signs of mourning in the merry trio 
that set out after luncheon to visit the farm. Jack’s 
pride in showing the place was not lessened when he 
suddenly remembered that, of course, his father knew 
every square inch of it. The Doctor, however, was 
delighted to find that his son was really in love with 
his new life. 

If the early winter be mild,” mother was saying, 


230 


JACK SOUTH 


“ we shall certainly remain at Graycote for Christmas. 
Indeed, I am hoping that we may settle down at home 
for the whole winter.’’ 

Jack’s eyes were fixed alternately on father and 
mother; both noticed that their son’s look was an in- 
quiring one. 

What do you say, Jack,” — Dr. South burst out 
at length — “ what do you say to remaining here till 
Christmas? You are looking so strong and hearty 
that I cannot find it in my heart to make you settle 
down to schoolwork for some time to come. But 
after Christmas, Jack, the old life may begin 
again.” 

Jack tried to speak and failed, but it was of no con- 
sequence. Both mother and father saw the joy and 
gratitude in every line of their son’s face. 

For that day Farmer Wilson entirely effaced him- 
self. It had already been arranged that Mrs. and 
Dr. South should spend a night or two at the farm, 
and Jack found himself playing the host — to his con- 
fusion and delight. He marvelled at the display of 
glass and silver on the dining-table — a much greater 
show than had been set out for Graycote. 

But Jack’s greatest surprise came at night when 
dinner was over, and he and his father and mother 
were sitting before the fire in the old-fashioned draw- 
ing-room. 

I did not want to write it. Jack,” the Doctor was 
saying, ‘‘ though little by little, I trust, I have prepared 


IN MOTHER’S ARMS 


231 


your mind for this important item of news. Can you 
guess what Fm going to say, Jack? ’’ 

‘‘ I think I can,” the boy said after a pause and look- 
ing a little scared. You have left the Church of 
England, father, — and mother ? ” he ventured, look- 
ing inquiringly at the latter. 

Both of us, dear,” Mrs. South said taking her 
son’s hand. ‘‘We were received into the Catholic 
Church just three days ago.” 

“ Fm so glad,” the boy said simply. “ Of course I 
don’t know much about it, but I always felt the Church 
of England couldn’t be really Catholic, you know.” 

They pressed him for his reasons and he gave them 
very readily. 

“ It seemed to me that if the Church of England 
had been really Catholic you wouldn’t have had all 
those difficulties when you were abroad. You know, 
father, you told me how you and mother were both- 
ered. And then, of course, in a really Catholic Church 
one ought to be able to go to confession to any clergy- 
man. I wanted awfully to go here; but from what 
the vicar said about absolution in the pulpit, I knew it 
was of no use my going to him. Then at Beechwood 
it was always a difficulty. Two or three of the mas- 
ters who were clergymen used to laugh at confession 
and sneer at the boys who went, and only Dr. Higham 
and the chaplain, who was just ordained, would ever 
hear one of us. I knew there was something wrong 
— somewhere.” 


232 


JACK SOUTH 


Mother and father and son sat very late that night 
talking of the religion so new to them, yet so old in 
itself. 

“ When can I be received, father ? Jack said as he 
rose to light the bedroom candles. 

You will have to be instructed first. Jack. I 
fancy the nearest Catholic Church is four or five miles 
from here — is it not? Well, we’ll ask Mr. Wilson 
what arrangements can be made.” 

But, my darling, you can share our night prayers,” 
said Mrs. South to Jack, and looking towards her hus- 
band. The Doctor assented heartily. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


INSTRUCTION 

‘‘While soul, sky, and music blend together, 

Let me give thanks even for those griefs in me. 

The restless windward stirrings of whose feather. 

Prove them the brood of immortality.” 

— Francis Thompson. 

When father and mother left the farm, a great lone- 
liness fell upon Jack. Cold October rains began to 
flood the fields, and the farm-yard itself became a 
standing pool. The poetry of summer and autumn 
had fled — seemingly for ever, and Jack’s spirits sank 
alarmingly. A little discontent seized him, and the 
temptation to repine became severe. 

The ever observant Mr. Wilson saw everything, 
said little and did much. He gave Jack another hour 
of sleep in the morning, and told him to consider his 
work at an end when the clock struck five in the even- 
ing. Soon afterwards the boy found a bright fire 
lighted in his room at night, and the big bedchamber 
itself made into a really cosy parlor. There came 
entire days of steady rain and blustering winds, when 
the farmer would let him do nothing beyond milking 
and a little wood-chopping in a dry shed; Jack’s spir- 

233 


JACK SOUTH 


234 

its revived, and he began to feel something like affec- 
tionate gratitude towards Mr. Wilson. 

The principal event of these late autumn days was 
Jack’s instruction in Christian Doctrine. Three times 
in the week the boy rode over to the priest’s house at 
Kipleigh, greatly rejoicing the heart of Father Rawl- 
ings by his eager desire to know ‘‘ everything,” and 
his intelligent understanding of the catechism. 

I have no excuse for putting you off, my boy,” 
said the priest early in December, and in answer to 
Jack’s pleading question as to how soon he might be 
received. 

“ Mother thought I might perhaps be received at 
Christmas when I go home. But if you, Father, 
think I know enough, I should like you to receive me 
here. Of course father and mother could come over 
for it. And you have been so kind to me. Father, 
and — ” 

And you have been so earnest and attentive, my 
child,” said the priest, smiling at Jack’s eager speech. 

If it could be arranged I should like to receive you 
on the Feast of St. Nicholas, the patron of boys, and 
give you your First Communion on the Feast of the 
Immaculate Conception.” 

It was arranged, and on the morning of the eighth 
of December Jack knelt between father and mother 
in the little Church of Kipleigh, to receive for the first 
time the Bread that cometh down from Heaven.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


CHRISTMAS 

“ Nor shall we dread the winter blast 
Or the long evening of our year 
With nothing more to hope or fear: 

Looking to keep Christ’s festival 
In his own fair and lighted hall. 

After the longest night is done, 

Cometh the Christmas benisonf’ 

— Katherine Tynan. 

Jack’s Christmases had always been fairly full of 
surprises, but the present one was crammed with 
them. He reached Graycote Grange on the evening 
of the twenty-third, and the first person he recognised 
after receiving his father’s and mother’s warm and pro- 
longed greeting was Mr. Hunton. He had known 
long ago of the old clergyman’s conversion, but his 
presence at Graycote had been kept secret from Jack, 
and the surprise was a happy one. 

But it was when mother whispered to her boy, 
“ Shall we make a little visit, my darling? ” that Jack 
received his greatest shock of delightful surprise. 
There had always been an oratory at Graycote Grange, 
at any rate within the memory of Jack; now he found 
it greatly enlarged and arranged like a chapel in daily 


use. 


235 


236 


JACK SOUTH 


“ Yes, dear,’’ Mrs. South whispered on the thres- 
hold, we have the Blessed Sacrament ! Permission 
for it came only two days ago ! ” 

‘‘ You'll tell me all about the chaplain, mother, 
won't you ? Fancy letting me find him out by myself," 
Jack was saying. “ He looks very old, but I like him 
awfully." 

He is a convert like ourselves," said Mrs. South, 
only he has been a Catholic forty years or more." 

‘'But won't Mr. Hunton become a priest?" Jack 
asked. 

“ No, dear. His humility will not let him seek 
orders." 

But it was only after the lapse of several days Jack 
received another surprise, in the shape of news that 
Mr. Hunton was to be his tutor for the present. 

“ I say, though, father, it was downright mean of 
you not to tell me about Johnny Gidlow," Jack laugh- 
ingly declared as the family sat down to breakfast on 
the morning of the twenty-fourth. “ Fancy my find- 
ing him actually serving Mass ! " 

“ The strangest part of it is that he was not con- 
verted by us," said the Doctor, “ though of course 
people will say we influenced him. I did not even 
know that he had any inclination towards the Church 
until he told me he wished to place himself under in- 
struction. It seems there is a Catholic Professor of 


CHRISTMAS 


^37 


Music at the school he goes to, and during the dinner 
hour the two have talked together about religion. The 
Professor is organist at the Catholic Church, and one 
day he persuaded Johnny, with his mother’s leave, to 
sing at a High Mass. Then Johnny heard a sermon 
which made a great impression upon him, and he had 
an interview with the preacher. The poor boy was 
delighted when, telling me of his difficulties and ask- 
ing my advice, he found that we were about to be re- 
ceived.” 

It was the most joyous Christmas Jack had ever 
known. He could not tear himself away from mother 
and father and sisters for a single hour, and if they had 
not accompanied him in his walks, he would not have 
taken needful exercise. 

‘‘ Come here, John, as often as ever you like,” he 
said to Graycote on Christmas-day ; ‘‘ but don’t, 
please don’t ask me to the Hall — at any rate for a 
week or two. Of course I’ll call on Lady Graycote, 
but positively I can’t accept any invitation at present.” 

John was at first inclined to grumble, but seeing that 
he really had the run of the Grange he became magnan- 
imous, and not a day of the Christmas holidays passed 
without his presence at luncheon or dinner, or, at the 
very least, afternoon tea. Never had the Bin ” wit- 
nessed such merry meetings. Jack’s only regret was 
that the Quartette remained incomplete, but after what 
had happened, it seemed impossible to include Davi- 


16 


238 


JACK SOUTH 


son in the daily joyous doings of the Grange. Johnny 
almost lived in the house, and Graycote’s greatest treat 
was to listen to South and Gidlow singing duets. 

Hearts is improving enormously,” said John on 
one occasion to Jack. He was always good, but he 
is beginning to sing with wonderful taste and expres- 
sion — don’t you think so ? ” 

Oh, yes,” rejoined Jack. “ But I forgot to tell 
you that he is having regular lessons now, both in 
music and singing. My father is giving him a mu- 
sical education. Some day Johnny will be a professor 
— if not a composer. Dad gave him the choice of 
several professions, but Johnny’s heart was set upon 
music.” 

“ Like your own. Jack.” 

“ Don’t know about myself, John. In fact I feel 
inclined to chuck it.” 

“ What ! give up music, with all your talent ? ” 

“ As a profession, certainly. For the amusement 
of my friends and myself, of course not. In this mat- 
ter I’m going to be guided by my father and mother. 
To tell you the truth, John — though I hope to go to 
Oxford with you, and am pretty sure we shall take our 
degrees together, I feel greatly drawn towards agri- 
culture and a country life; and I found out only the 
other day that my father has settled the Clemington 
Farm upon me and that, years hence, when Mr. Wil- 
son retires, dad would like me to take it up.” 

“Bravo!” exclaimed Graycote. “You’ll make an 
ideal country gentleman.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


A HARMONIOUS TRIO 

“ My win is something sorted with his wish : 

Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed; 

For what I will, I will, and there an end.” 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

The conversion of the South family to the Catholic 
Church caused some excitement in Graycote. At the 
Hall it was much discussed and severely condemned; 
at first it seemed likely that the event would cause a 
lasting rupture in the friendship that existed between 
the Graycotes and the Souths. The rector was more 
than angry and tried to induce Lady Graycote to 
forbid any communication between her son and Jack 
South. To this however, she would not listen. Sev- 
eral members of her own family were Catholics, she 
said, and Lord Graycote’s uncle — from whom there 
were expectations — had been received into the Church 
only the year before. 

So, in spite of everything. Diamonds and Clubs met 
frequently and enjoyed each other’s society to the full. 
John indeed was overjoyed when he found that Jack 
was likely to remain at home under the tutorial care 
of the chaplain. Father Digby, and Mr. Hunton. 

The Christmas holidays passed quickly enough, and 
239 


240 


JACK SOUTH 


Jack enjoyed them to the full — spending them for the 
most part in the dear home circle from which he had 
so long been excluded. The winter was an exceed- 
ingly mild one, and Mrs. South’s health seemed to be 
entirely established. The Graycotes gave their annual 
ball, and, to the disgust of the rector, the Souths were 
invited as usual. Jack saw something of his old chum 
every day, but it was noticeable that John was much 
more frequently at the Grange than Jack was at the 
Hall. Indeed, young Graycote began to haunt Mrs. 
South’s drawing-room more than ever. 

I don’t know how it is. Jack,” he said one Jan- 
uary afternoon as he and Diamonds were return- 
ing from a long ramble, I always feel so jolly at 
your house. There’s always something going on, and 
— 'Well, it’s so homely; I mean really like home, you 
know; and then, everybody’s so genial.” 

So glad you think so,” cried Jack. “ Of course 
we’re a bigger family than you are and — all that. 
When I was at Wilson’s I used to try not to think of 
home, for every time the old place came before my 
mind, I got a strange dull pain somewhere or other, 
and it was all I coiAd do not to blub like a kid. 
Wasn’t it awfully good of Dad to let me off after those 
four months! Before I left, Wilson told me that if 
I’d been refractory I should have had a whole year ! ” 
‘‘ It would have killed you, old chap 1 ” 

‘‘Not a bit of it, John I Why I’m twice the fellow 
I was — muscularly and otherwise. And after being 


A HARMONIOUS TRIO 


241 

away from my books so long, I feel that I can study 
now till all’s blue.” 

'‘And what are you going to prepare for, Jack?” 

" Oxford, as I told you. Both Father Digby and 
Mr. Hunton are Oxford men, and they are going to 
coach me, you know.” 

" But you won’t go up for some time to come? ” 

" Of course not. I shall wait for you. We’re only 
fifteen and a-half, so we shall be here for two years or 
more. You see I’ve been an awfully lazy beggar and 
have got to make up for no end of lost time.” 

" You’ll do that all right. Jack.” 

" Hope so. I’m going to try jolly hard, I can tell 
you. It’s wonderful what a chap can do when he 
really tries. Take Johnny Gidlow for instance. Act- 
ually the young beggar is half way through his Caesar, 
and this time last year he didn’t know mensa! He’ll 
beat me yet if I’m not sharp. Dad is awfully pleased 
with what he calls his experiment.” 

" Naturally,” said Graycote. " By the way, talking 
of Hearts reminds me of Spades. Have you seen 
Davison these holidays. Jack? ” 

" Several times. And he always looked mighty 
sulky, I can tell you. I’m afraid there’ll be a row 
sooner or later. Our Quartette is hopelessly broken 
up, I fancy.” 

" A harmonious Trio is better than a discordant 
Quartette.” 

" True, John. Perhaps I was over hasty in form- 


242 JACK SOUTH 

ing the latter. Still it's nice to be civil to one's neigh- 
bors." 

‘‘ The incivility is all on Davison's side," Graycote 
remarked. 

“ That's a fact. And of course it doesn't matter 
a rap to us. I'm only afraid for Johnny Gidlow. 
Davison's jealousy of him is sure to increase now that 
Hearts is raised — well, above the level of Spades, 
at least. You see, Gidlow is quite two years younger 
than Davison, and in a quarrel, or a fight, Johnny 
could hardly hold his own." 

Davison would be afraid of your father, if not of 
yourself." 

‘‘ No doubt. But then, you see. Spades seems to 
have so little self-control when he is roused. I'm aw- 
fully afraid there'll be a shindy before long. But 
come in and have some tea, John," South continued 
as the two stopped at the gates of the Grange. 


r 


CHAPTER XXIX 


A FULFILLED PROPHECY 

all foul things in beast or bird. 

Or in men’s hearts that be, 

This, the foul fiend of cruelty 
Our father most abhorred.” 

Unhappily, Jack’s prophecy became a true one, and 
the shindy turned out to be a far more serious affair 
than he had anticipated. 

It seemed that frequently during the holidays Da- 
vison had been in the habit of waylaying Johnny Gid- 
low, and, fearful of proceeding further, had called 
him all sorts of names and heaped upon him every 
disgusting title he could invent. Johnny had said 
nothing of this to a single soul. Very wisely, too, he 
had passed Davison by without replying to him, and, 
as far as possible, had kept out of the big lad’s way. 
Unfortunately this apparent indifference only served 
to increase Davison’s wrath. 

Johnny Gidlow little guessed that Davison was try- 
ing to create an opportunity for playing his trump 
card. This card was in the shape of a photograph — ■ 
a snap-shot taken at Lacton-on-the-Sea. For, among 
the crowd on the sands at the time of Jack’s arrest, 
there had been, several of Davison’s schoolfellows — • 

243 


244 


JACK SOUTH 


one of them provided with a camera. This youth had 
taken several shots at Jack and his friends, and when 
he returned to school was able to give quite an exhibi- 
tion of those ‘‘ Extraordinary Proceedings at Lac- 
ton,” recorded in the local papers. Davison saw his 
opportunity at once, and though the young photog- 
rapher drove a very hard bargain. Jack of Spades 
was able to return home for the Christmas holidays 
with one of these damaging pictures in his possession. 
It was quite the best of the set, from the snap-shot- 
ter’s point of view, being taken just as the four pris- 
oners had left the crowd on the beach and before they 
began to be surrounded by the rabble of the streets. 
Jack's face and handcuffed wrists were particularly 
prominent, for he was a little ahead of the others and 
seemed to be dragging them along. 

For months Davison had gloated over this photo- 
graph. What particular use to make of it was his 
only difficulty. His first intention had been to send it 
as a Christmas card to Jack's mother. He did not do 
so, because he reflected that once the thing was out of 
his hands it would be lost. It would be something to 
destroy the happiness both of Jack and his mother on 
such a day, but then the jealous, cruel-hearted lad did 
not want to lose the photograph. He foresaw great 
possibilities of fun,” not to say of revenge, in the 
possession of a picture of this sort. 

But when Christmas had gone by, Davison almost 
regretted that he had not acted upon his original reso- 


A FULFILLED PROPHECY 


245 


lution. There was no one in Graycote who disliked 
Jack South; there were many who loved him. To 
harrow the feelings of the latter was something, but 
it was not enough. After all, Davison thought, it 
would be better to use the thing in a way that would 
cause most pain, and that would certainly be to send it 
to Mrs. South. But before he did so, he would take 
care that Johnny Gidlow had a sight of it. This at 
any rate would insure South’s knowing that the pho- 
tograph had been in his (Davison’s) possession. 

It was a day of two after Jack had made his proph- 
ecy, and the Christmas holidays were all but over. 
Johnny himself was taking a short cut to the Grange, 
when he suddenly came face to face with Davison. 
The road was a very narrow one, a sort of bridle-path, 
with a low stone wall on one side and a hedge on the 
other. Gidlow would have passed on, but Davison 
barred the way. There was a diabolical smile on the 
latter’s face as he said : Wait a moment ! I’ve got 
something to show you.” It was the first time since 
he came home from school that Davison had met the 
other without using abusive language, and for a mo- 
ment Johnny was off his guard. 

IVe got something here that Jack South would 
give his head for,” began Davison, taking an envelope 
from his pocket and clasping it between his two hands. 
“ Like to see it ? ” 

Johnny was anxious to know what the something 
might be, but he answered stoutly and promptly — 


246 


JACK SOUTH 

‘‘ No, thanks. I don’t want to see it,” and he made as 
though he would pass on. 

‘‘ But you’ve got to see it,” said Davison, stepping 
in front of Gidlow and at the same time taking the 
photograph from the envelope. ‘‘ There ! what do you 
think of that? There’s your precious Master Jack 
with a steel bracelet on each wrist! Pretty picture 
that — ain’t it ? ” 

With his right hand Davison seized the small boy 
by the scruff of the neck; in his left he held the pho- 
tograph in front of the unwilling spectator. For a 
moment Johnny turned pale as he looked at the pic- 
ture of his hero and friend being led through the 
streets in handcuffs. Then the younger boy made a 
big resolve. Davison’s grip upon his neck was a tight 
one, but his hands were free. A moment’s hesitation, 
and Johnny suddenly snatched the photograph out of 
the big lad’s hand, and tore it into little pieces. “ I 
don’t care if you kill me,” he said in a trembling voice, 
and taking a glance at Davison’s murderous face. 
Then he felt himself seized — knew that he had re- 
ceived two awful blows on the head and that he was 
being thrown with great violence against the stone 
wall. 

After that for many long hours Johnny Gidlow 
knew nothing. 


CHAPTER XXX 


NEMESIS 

‘*My conscience! thou art fetter’d 
More than my shanks and wrists: you good gods, give me 
The penitent instrument to pick that bolt. 

Then, free for ever ! ” 

— Cymbeline. 

If Davison had been inclined to run away from the 
presence of his victim, he could not have done so. A 
great shriek had made itself heard in that quiet spot, 
and two farm laborers who had seen the altercation 
from a distance ran across the field and climbed over 
the stone wall almost before Davison realised what 
had happened. 

‘‘ I reckon youVe done for him,’’ said one of the 
men as he knelt down and raised Johnny’s head. A 
broad stream of blood was flowing from a deep wound 
in the forehead and a little crimson pool already lay 
in the mud of the road-side.* 

The other man put his finger to his mouth and blew 
a piercing whistle to attract the attention of a group 
of men working in the near distance. They were 
soon on the spot and the man who was bending over 
Johnny gave his orders with great promptness. 

‘‘One of ye run for Dr. South, quick as ye can. 
247 


248 JACK SOUTH 

Tom, you keep your eye on young Davison while Joe 
fetches t ’bobby/' 

The man had taken Johnny’s handkerchief and was 
clumsily, but tenderly, trying to stop the flow of blood. 
Davison stood near trembling and with his eyes fixed 
upon his victim. He tried to ask if the bleeding boy 
lived, but he found himself tongue-tied. 

Only a single meadow separated them from the 
Grange, and in a few minutes the Doctor had taken 
the place of the well-intentioned but helpless laborer. 

“ Two of you carry him very gently to my house,” 
he said at length and when he had partially staunched 
the bleeding. ‘‘Go very slowly! No, stop! I’ll take 
his head myself.” 

The Doctor gave one glance at Davison but said 
nothing. The village policeman was already in sight. 

“ I didn’t mean to hurt him — much,” Davison 
faltered as the officer came up. “ He hit his head 
against the wall there. It was only an accident, you 
know. You can’t lock me up for a thing like that.” 

The policeman was not a wordy man. He gave 
his prisoner the usual caution, as he dived into his 
pocket for the handcuffs. 

“ Nay, lad,” he said as Davison stefpped back pro- 
testingly, “ you murSt have ’em on. Serious job, this. 
T’other hand as well. You’re a big strong chap now, 
and I’m responsible for you till you get to Linbor- 
ough.” 

As Davison was led away, the last objects that met 


NEMESIS 


249 

his eye were the little pool of blood and, lying near it, 
some tiny scraps of a photograph. 

The insecurity of Graycote lock-up was well known, 
and it was seldom that a prisoner was left there for 
the night; so an hour later a cart drove up to take John 
Davison to Linborough. The whole village had as- 
sembled about the lock-up, and as the prisoner was 
led out, cries of Shame ” saluted him and added to 
his misery. Once in the cart, he tried without success 
to hide his fettered hands, and his last mortification, 
as the driver turned the corner of the village street, 
was to meet the eyes of Jack South and Graycote. 
No word or sign passed between them, but he could 
not help seeing that their faces were sorrowful. Were 
they pitying him or Johnny Gidlow? Was it possible 
that the latter was dead ? 

Johnny was not dead, but he still lay unconscious. 
His own mother sat watching him, and Dr. South was 
constantly present. Jack was not allowed to see his 
poor little friend and spent a miserable day with 
Graycote wandering about the fields and now and 
then making a rush into the Grange to ask eager ques- 
tions. He zms sorry for Davison and for his parents. 
Dr. South pronounced the wound a very serious one, 
and admitted that Johnny was in great danger, Da- 
vison would escape the charge of wilful murder, pos- 
sibly that of manslaughter; but, it was said, for such 
a murderous assault he could not possibly escape a 
term of imprisonment. He had turned sixteen, and 


250 


JACK SOUTH 


his dress and appearance made him look much older. 

Very late that night Johnny recovered conscious- 
ness. The Doctor just looked into Jack’s room, 
scarcely expecting to find his son awake, but the boy 
had not slept a wink, he said. He was at once de- 
lighted and consoled with his father’s news and 
pleaded hard to be allowed to see Johnny, but this the 
Doctor would not hear of. 

“ He must be kept absolutely quiet,” Doctor South 
said. An hour or two ago, we removed him to the 
remotest room in the house — the old panelled cham- 
ber with the double doors. It will be a long business. 
Jack. Pray for the best, old man. And don’t forget 
to pray for that unhappy Davison.” 

I will pray for both, father,” said Jack with a sob. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


jack’s scruples 

“Who alone suffers, suffers most i’ the mind; 

Leaving free things and happy shows behind: 

But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip 
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.” 

— King Lear. 

Two months later, and just as March was begin- 
ging to grow mild, Johnny left the house for the first 
time. He looked very pale and feeble, but a happy 
smile played about his face as he sighted the almond 
blossoms and the daffodils. Both Jack and John were 
in attendance, and their spirits were high. 

The past eight or nine weeks had been an anxious 
time for all concerned. Johnny had suffered all the 
horrors of brain-fever, and for a week or more it was 
thought that his mind would be permanently affected. 
Now, however, the Doctor felt satisfied that the scar 
on his forehead was the only lasting reminder of his 
grievous injury Johnny would retain. 

Davison’s trial had come off at the Linborough As- 
sizes, late in February. The judge had taken a severe 
view of the case, describing it as a very cowardly as- 
sault and remarking that but for the Doctor’s assur- 
ance that the injured boy was likely to recover, the 

251 


252 JACK SOUTH 

sentence would have been a much heavier one. Da- 
vision was sent to hard labor for six months. 

The three Jacks, while feeling that the punishment 
was deserved, were deeply sorry for the culprit, and 
Johnny Gidlow himself cried bitterly when he heard 
that, in consequence of their son’s disgrace, Mr. and 
Mrs. Davison had left Graycote. 

It was long before Jack South heard the full details 
of the incident that provoked Davison to attack Johnny 
so savagely. Neither he nor Graycote had been pres- 
ent at the trial; but, as a matter of fact, Davison was 
too much ashamed of the episode of the photograph 
to make its destruction an argument for his own de- 
fence, and would only say that Gidlow had angered 
him. 

Oh, John, what a funny thing life is ! ” South ex- 
claimed mournfully when, one day, after an hour’s 
cross-questioning he had forced Gidlow to tell him 
the circumstances that led to the assault. ‘‘ You see 
it’s my fault after all ! If I hadn’t got into that mess 
at Lacton, the photograph wouldn’t have been in ex- 
istence ; Johnny wouldn’t have suffered all these weeks, 
and Davison wouldn’t be in prison. How horribly 
one thing seems to depend upon another in this 
world!” 

Graycote reasoned with his chum as best he could, 
but it was only after a long talk with his father that 
Jack ceased to torture himself. 

At any rate,” Dr. South said, after talking for 


JACK’S SCRUPLES 


253 


some time of first and secondary causes, “ you cannot 
blame yourself for Davison’s jealousy and malice. It 
is clear that the wretched lad had a most unreasonable 
spite against both yourself and Johnny. He had 
brooded over some fancied injury until it became a 
monomania. The evidence given at the trial surprised 
even me. One witness said that Davison had fre- 
quently threatened to ‘ do ’ for Gidlow and that they 
never met without the use of most disgusting language 
on the part of the prisoner. Then it came out that 
Davison was in the habit of drinking — even in the 
morning and that on the day of the assault he had 
just left the ‘ Graycote Arms.’ No one had ever seen 
him drunk, but it is evident that he had fallen into 
the habit of tippling. Now, you see. Jack, you can’t 
possibly blame yourself for these things, any more 
than for Davison’s natural disposition which, as I 
know, has always been a sulky one. The truth is. Jack, 
that unhappy lad has ruined himself by aping the 
habits and vices of a man long before he has acquired 
a man’s years. Moreover, he wanted to be something 
very much above his station. How far all this is due 
to excessive indulgence on the part of his mother and 
excessive severity on his father’s side, it is not for me 
to say, but it seems notorious in the village that his 
mother was always supplying him with money, and 
that he was often treated with harshness by his 
father.” 

But it required several talks of this kind, both with 
17 


254 


JACK SOUTH 

the Doctor and Father Digby, before Jack partially 
exonerated himself from being the cause of all the 
misery of the past two months, and it was some time 
before the boy regained his old elasticity. 

Davison had in reality sprung from a very humble 
and, what is far more to the point, a very coarse stock. 
Years before the birth of his youngest son, Davison 
senior had been a gardener’s laborer with the min- 
imum of skill and taste. Little by little, however, he 
had pushed himself to the front, and as Lord Graycote 
cared little for horticulture and very much for the 
great kitchen garden that, as has been said, was a 
considerable source of profit, Davison had gradually 
qualified himself for the post of head gardener. He 
was a man entirely without education, and his wife, 
who had been a housemaid at the Hall, was barely 
able to read or write. John was their third son, and 
his two brothers were little more than laborers, one 
on a farm in a neighboring village, the other in a 
large nursery garden some distance from Graycote. It 
had been the mother’s resolution that John should be 
a gentleman. Her proposal that he should be sent 
to a boarding-school had at first been scouted by her 
husband, but as she persisted in her entreaties Davison 
at length gave way, and, at the age of thirteen, John 
was taken from the village school, clad in garments 
that were something better than the Sunday suit he 
had hitherto worn and sent off to a famous ‘‘ Academy 
for young gentlemen ” in a town about twenty miles 


JACK’S SCRUPLES ^55 

from his native village. The change of life completely 
turned his head, and he had not been long at school 
before he was nick-named ‘ the Swag,’ which was short 
for swaggerer. Of course, he betrayed his origin at 
every point. His accent and manner were very de- 
fective, and but for his physical strength, which was 
considerable, he would have been scoffed at to despera- 
tion. He was clever, and made progress. His accent 
became a trifle less bucolic, and he tried to make up 
in dress what he lacked in personal appearance and 
good breeding. He had always been jealous of 
South’s intimacy with Graycote, and latterly his spite 
against Johnny Gidlow had, as the Doctor said, 
amounted to monomania. 

But Davison’s capital error had been the aping 
not merely the dress and manners of a grown-up man, 
but the vices of some dissolute young farmers with 
whom he had stayed during the summer holidays 
and who had younger brothers at the school to which 
he had been sent. These young men had, unhappily, 
lost their father and mother, and their eldest brother 
was their guardian. The household was notorious 
for its dissoluteness; but all that the elder Davison 
knew of it was that his son was at school with its 
younger inmates. And being at such a school, the 
gardener argued, his son’s companions must be re- 
spectable. In after years the younger Davison ad- 
mitted that they had completed his ruin. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


THE QUALITY OF MERCY 

“Let your love be wide as His, 

With the whole world round his knees; 

Gather into your warm heart 
All His creatures — not a part; 

So your love shall be like His.” 

Tishley Wood is again ringing with music and 
laughter. It is Jack South’s seventeenth birthday and 
is being celebrated by a great picnic. The three Jacks 
have come by boat, as on the famous occasion two 
years ago. Doctor and Mrs. South and their daugh- 
ters have driven, and at this moment the girls are 
laying the cloths on the grass and opening savory- 
smelling hampers. It has been decided that Jack must 
be waited upon to-day, and not be permitted to do 
anything save eat and drink, laugh and play. Sing, 
alas, he cannot, for his voice is breaking and he is 
bidden to rest it for a time. 

The three lads have wandered away into the heart 
of the wood. A moment ago you might have heard 
the twanging of Jack’s guitar in the distance, and the 
ring of Johnny’s soprano — clear and fresh as ever. 

The music has ceased for a time. The boys are 
getting deeper and deeper into the pleasant gloom 
256 


THE QUALITY OF MERCY 257 

of the pines, and as they do so they grow silent for 
a space. Jack is the first to speak. 

“ I can’t get the thought of Davison out of my head 
this morning.” 

“ Nor I,” said Graycote. Though I did not men- 
tion his name, I was thinking of him all the way up 
the river. Has anything been heard of him lately ? ” 

Jack shook his head, but Johnny Gidlow remarked 
in a low voice : “ They say his mother is dead, Mr. 
Graycote. I’m afraid it’s true because the report 
came from Barton’s at the shop, and I know they 
sometimes get a letter from Mr. Davison.” 

“Poor chap!” ejaculated South, thinking of John 
Davison. “ He was out of prison long ago. I won- 
der what he’s doing? ” 

“ I believe his father said he wouldn’t have him at 
home,” Gidlow went on sorrowfully. “ He said John 
might earn his living as best he could.” 

It was the first time for several months that they 
had mentioned Davison’s name, and they now dis- 
cussed his prospects at some length. 

“ We’ve come to a cul-de-sac! ” exclaimed Graycote 
suddenly, and peering through his spectacles at a great 
growth of bramble and gorse that confronted them. 
“ There’s nothing for it but to turn back.” 

“ There ought to be a way round,” said Jack; “ but 
we musn’t risk losing ourselves, or we shall keep them 
waiting for luncheon. Better go back the road we 
came by.’’ 


258 


JACK SOUTH 


Graycote tried hard to steer the conversation into 
another channel, but somehow Jack could only talk 
of Davison. 

“ Poor fellow ! he said again and again, “ how I 
wish we could do somehing for him ! ” 

Do you really mean that? ” 

The three boys almost leaped into the air. There 
had been a sudden rustle among the bramble bushes, 
and the figure of John Davison stood before them. 

“ Do you really mean what you say, Mr. South ? ” 
Davison repeated. 

“ Of course I do,” said Jack, who was greatly 
startled. “ But I’d no idea you were in the neigh- 
borhood.” 

“ I shouldn’t have been, if I’d known you were com- 
ing here,” Davison continued. ‘‘ I didn’t mean you 
to see me. I saw you coming along and hid myself 
in that bush. Then as you passed I heard you talk- 
ing about me, and when you came back you were 
still talking of me, and well — ” 

Here Davison broke into such bitter weeping as the 
three lads had never witnessed before. He was a 
pitiable object. He seemed to have grown thin and 
lanky, and his dusty clothes hung about him loosely. 
His cap had fallen off, and the close-cropped head 
and pale, worn features were sad to look upon. 

“ What can we do for you? ” Jack asked gently as 
the other’s weeping began to subside. “ We’re awfully 
sorry for you, Davison — you know that.” 


THE QUALITY OF MERCY 259 

But it was some time before the lad could trust him- 
self to speak. 

'‘It’s the way you talked about me amongst your- 
selves that fetched me,” he said at length. " I thought 
you’d hate me and shun me all the days of my life. 
I’d no idea lads could forgive. I always thought it 
rather the thing to go on hating — manly, you know, 
and all that. When I first saw you coming along, 
I felt as if I could murder the three of you, and then 
jump into the river out yonder; but when I listened 
to what you said and found you were all sorry for me, 
well — I felt different somehow. You see, there’s no- 
body now to care a rap for me. I haven’t a friend 
left on earth. I suppose you’ve heard of my moth- 
er’s — ” 

Davison broke off, and turning his back upon the 
trio, leant his head against a tree and sobbed afresh. 
Jack went up to him and laid a hand upon his shoulder. 

" You need something to eat, Davison, I’m sure,” 
said South. " You’re faint and weak for want of 
food. Come along with us a little way, and we’ll 
bring you something and see what can be done for 
you.” 

Jack took him by the hand and led him along. 
Graycote and Gidlow, much moved, followed in silence. 

" Perhaps you won’t care to join us, but we’ve plenty 
of grub, and if you like we’ll bring a square meal 
to some quiet spot where you won’t be seen. Then 
I’ll speak to my father about you — privately.” 


26 o 


JACK SOUTH 

Davison pressed Jack’s hand, and then the two other 
members of the quartette came up and silently shook 
hands with the suffering lad. 

Two hours later John Davison had left Tishley 
Wood, and was making his way to the nearest railway 
sation. He had dined well for the first time for many 
long months, and he had two pounds in his pocket. 
Dr. South himself had interviewed the unfortunate 
boy. 

‘‘ Of course, sir, I’m ready to work,” Davison had 
said. “ When I was sent to gaol for six months’ hard 
labor, I knew very well that meant hard labor for 
life. I could work on a farm if anybody would em- 
ploy me. I’m not very strong just now, but with 
good food I should soon pick up again.” 

Dr. South spoke kindly to the lad, and tried to 
encourage him. 

I will write a little note to Mr. Wilson of Clem- 
ington,” the Doctor said, tearing a leaf or two from 
his pocket book. ‘‘ He will receive you for a time, 
at any rate, and I shall visit him in a few days.” 

So Davison travelled to Clemington with a com- 
paratively light heart. He had been discharged from 
gaol five days before, but hard as the prison life was, 
he had found that of a tramp much harder. Home- 
lessness and absolute loneliness were more than he 
could bear. He had been tempted to suicide more 
than once, and every river he came across had had 


THE QUALITY OF MERCY 


261 


a fascination for him. To have a roof of any kind 
over his head would be a perfect joy. 

The three boys accompanied him part of the way 
to the station, and when they bade him farewell, Davi- 
son took an almost affectionate leave of Johnny Gid- 
low. 

"'You will never be able to forgive me really, 
Johnny,” he said, putting his hand very tenderly over 
the big scar on Gidlow’s forehead. “ I deserved more 
than six months for being such a brute to you.” 

But I do forgive you, really,” Johnny cried out, 
taking the big lad’s hand between his own palms. 
" And I’d have saved you from being sent to prison, 
if I could ; but I couldn’t, you know. I forgive you — 
from my heart.” 

Davison pressed the scarred forehead to his breast 
for an instant and was gone. 

" I can’t help thinking he’ll turn out well, after all,” 
said Jack. 

Both Graycote and Gidlow assented. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


TEN YEARS LATER 

“ Please you, I’ll tell you as we pass along, 

That you will wonder what hath fortuned. 

Come . . . ’tis your penance but to hear 
The story of your loves discovered. 

That done, our day of marriage shall be yours ; 

One feast . . . one mutual happiness.” 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Four young men 'are sitting at luncheon in the din- 
ing-room of the farm at Clemington. One of them 
is Jack South, now twenty-six years old, the owner 
and occupier of the big farm upon which as a boy 
of fifteen he had been sent to work for four months. 
Sitting opposite to him is John Davison, his trusty 
farm-bailiff and faithful friend. On Jack’s right is 
the Hon. John Graycote, who spends more of his time 
at Clemington than in his ancestral halls. Opposite 
to him is Johnny Gidlow, still very boyish-looking, 
though he is nearing his twenty-fifth birthday. He is 
now a distinguished professor of music and singing 
in the country town, not many miles away, and is a 
frequent and welcome visitor at the farm. 

‘‘ And so,” Graycote is saying a little sadly, “ this 
is the very last time the four Jacks will meet — at 
any rate — ” 


262 


TEN YEARS LATER 


263 


John, you were always a croaker. The last time, 
indeed ! I should just think not. The last time, per- 
haps, we shall meet at a bachelor luncheon party; but 
don't forget the smoking-room. My intended wife 
is not numbered among the ladies who smoke. And 
it was only yesterday she said to me when I told her 
the ‘ Cards ' were going to meet : ‘ Do tell them that 
your old boy friends will always find a home at Clem- 
ington.' Now, what say you to that, John?" 

Clubs, Hearts and Spades exchange smiles. 

“ The builders are getting on apace," Gidlow re- 
marks. “ It is only a fortnight since I was here, and 
the new wing wasn't roofed over. Now they are 
glazing the windows." 

'' Oh," exclaims Jack, laughing merrily. I have 
helped them no end by being on the spot. I should 
have been content with the old house as it was, but 
my father insisted upon making these additions. He 
said I should be sure to want a lot of bedrooms; 
I hope that means that he and mother will come here 
often. And then the old drawing-room is rather 
small; and there was no room that I could use as a 
study or for smoking purposes." 

“ You must come and see my new cottage before 
you go," Davison says with a happy look. I call 
it a villa, but Mr. South seems to think I shall want 
more space by-and-by." 

'' Davison is a humbug," cries the laughing Jack. 

He knows very well that he's only waiting for me 


264 jack south 

to get married and settled before he does the same 
himself.” 

Davison’s blushes are a sufficient confession, and he 
receives the hearty congratulations of Graycote and 
Gidlow. 

“ And when is this new volume of lyrics coming 
out ? ” Gidlow inquires. 

“ Well,” says Jack, pretending to consider, ‘‘ proba- 
bly on the day Professor Gidlow’s new cantata is 
published.” 

Gidlow protests merrily that his score is not nearly 
ready for publication, but that he knows South’s poems 
are in the hands of the printers. 

‘‘ I don’t mind telling you fellows that I’m keeping 
the book back a bit. I want to dedicate it to my 
wife, you see. The first collection was inscribed ‘ To 
my mother and father ’ ; on my wedding-day I want 
to give the first copy to Maggie, and with the dedica- 
tion printed inside.” 

“ This is just the place for a poet,” says Graycote, 
‘‘ particularly for a pastoral poet like you. Jack.” 

‘‘If you call me names, John, you shan’t have 
any more claret,” Jack exclaims, filling his friend’s 
glass. “ But, really, I am in love with the old farm. 
I began to like it even when, as a lad, I slept in the 
hay-loft and got up at four in the morning and 
fetched up the cows and milked ’em and cleaned out 
the sheds and stables. Do you remember, John, how 


TEN YEARS LATER 265 

horrified you were when you first came across me in 
the yard ? ’’ 

‘‘ I wasn’t horrified,” Graycote protests. You 
looked awfully clean and neat though you had nothing 
on but shirt and corduroy trousers. I confess I was 
startled.” 

Jack laughs heartily and then says : 

‘‘ Poor old Wilson ! He startled me when I first 
met him. But what a good fellow he was ! He made 
a man of me ! ” 

‘‘ And of me, also,” Davison chimes in earnestly. 
‘‘ He was awfully good to me from — from the be- 
ginning. But for him and your father, Mr. South, and 
yourself — where should I be ? ” 

You were with Mr. Wilson when he died — 
weren’t you? ” Jack asks quickly in order to avoid un- 
pleasant reminiscences. 

“ I was, Mr. South, and his death made me a Catho- 
lic, as you know.” 

Jack changes the subject. Only one of the four re- 
mains outside the Church, and Jack hopes that Gray- 
cote’s reception is only a matter of time. 

Heavy rain is falling outside, and when luncheon is 
over, the four young men settle down to a rubber of 
whist — ‘‘for love,” Jack announces. They lose and 
win, win and lose; but as Jack remarks at the end of 
the rubber, it is astonishing how frequently spades are 
trumps. Clubs looks at Diamonds, and Hearts — the 


266 


JACK SOUTH 

scar is still visible on his forehead and will be as long 
as he lives — Hearts looks at Clubs. No one speaks, 
but Spades blushes a little and, Diamonds setting the 
example, they join hands. 


THE END 


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